Add an init command to create agents-cli-manifest.yaml for existing ADK projects
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 48/100
- Issue type
- Feature
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- cli, developer-experience
Research direction
Start by tracing the existing agents-cli create and scaffold commands, manifest lookup behavior, and the eval run entry point. Define how init should detect project name and agent directory from pyproject.toml, app/, agent.py, or root_agent.yaml, while honoring explicit flags. Done means an existing ADK project can generate a minimal agents-cli-manifest.yaml without overwriting it by default, and eval run --all can use it.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
What is your feature suggestion?
I would like agents-cli to provide a lightweight initialization command that writes agents-cli-manifest.yaml into an existing ADK project, without scaffolding a new project or adding deployment files.
For example, the command could be:
agents-cli init
or:
agents-cli scaffold init
Ideally this would feel similar to hatch new --init: when run from an existing project root, it detects reasonable defaults and creates the minimal project metadata needed by agents-cli commands.
A possible generated manifest could be:
name: my-agent
agent_directory: app
region: us-east1
create_params:
deployment_target: none
It would also be helpful to support flags such as:
agents-cli init --agent-directory app --name my-agent
agents-cli init --dry-run
agents-cli init --yes
The command should avoid overwriting an existing agents-cli-manifest.yaml unless an explicit --force flag is provided.
What will this enable you to do?
This would make it much easier to adopt agents-cli in existing ADK projects.
Right now, after adding eval files to an existing project by skill equiped coding agent, running:
agents-cli eval run --all
fails with:
Error: No agents-cli-manifest.yaml found in the current directory or its parents.
Run this command from your project root, or create a project first:
agents-cli create my-agent
For an existing ADK project, I do not necessarily want to create a new project or run a broader scaffold/enhance flow. I only need the minimal manifest so commands like agents-cli eval run, agents-cli info, and other project-aware commands can locate the project root and agent directory.
A lightweight init command would provide a clear migration path:
- Start with an existing ADK project.
- Add evalsets/config.
- Run
agents-cli init. - Run
agents-cli eval run --all.
This would reduce friction for users who already have ADK agents and want to gradually adopt agents-cli workflows.
Additional context
The ideal UX is similar to hatch new --init, where an existing project can be initialized in place.
https://hatch.pypa.io/dev/cli/reference/#hatch-new
Nice-to-have detection behavior:
- infer
namefrompyproject.tomlor the current directory name - infer
agent_directoryfrom common ADK layouts such asapp/, a package listed inpyproject.toml, or a directory containingagent.py/root_agent.yaml - default
deployment_targettononeso local eval usage works without opting into deployment scaffolding - print the generated manifest and explain what was detected
- provide flags for explicit values when auto-detection is wrong
This would complement agents-cli create for new projects and agents-cli scaffold enhance for adding broader scaffold/deployment support, while covering the smaller "initialize this existing ADK project for agents-cli" use case.
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 6k
- Forks
- 670
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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