Alex ACT Core

Core · Manager · Illustrator · Document Tools · Enterprise

Alex ACT Core gives every workspace the same reasoning floor: Alex Finch's identity, ACT's critical-thinking discipline, and reusable skills arrive as one plugin-native baseline. Projects add specialized capability without rebuilding the brain.

Version: 1.1.0. Install from the Alex Mall as alex-act-core@alex-mall.

Current source shape: 29 skills, 17 source instructions, and 14 slash-command prompts. Manager distributes 16 always-on instructions to ~/.copilot/instructions/; one Core instruction remains pattern-applied.

Public runtime source: Alex ACT Core contains the shipped skills, prompts, instruction sources, release history, and installation contract. Changes remain evidence-gated before release.

Public project home: Alex_ACT_Core.

Personality and voice reference: ALEX-FINCH.md is Core's public identity reference. It is not an automatically loaded plugin component; the separately bootstrapped personality instruction carries the runtime contract.

Complete end-user installation: INSTALL.md.

Quick install (4 steps)

For a fresh install on any machine:

1. Register the Alex Mall marketplace:

   copilot plugin marketplace add fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall

2. Install the brain spine:

   copilot plugin install alex-act-manager@alex-mall
   copilot plugin install alex-act-core@alex-mall

3. Reload VS Code (or restart if using CLI standalone) so Manager and Core activate.

4. Open Copilot Chat and run:

   /alex-act-manager install-constellation
   

Step 4 keeps every selected plugin enabled and separately asks whether to bootstrap the sixteen always-on ACT instructions. After that first bootstrap, short greetings can use greeting-checkin for repair, drift, and updates. A greeting cannot start first-time setup because the greeting instruction is delivered by the bootstrap itself.

Full walkthrough: Install the Alex ACT constellation.

Managing the Alex Mall marketplace

The Alex Mall is where Core, Illustrator, and Enterprise install from. Four commands cover its lifecycle (all user-scope; work from any workspace):

Command	What it does
copilot plugin marketplace add fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall	Register the Mall as alex-mall. Needed once per machine before any <plugin>@alex-mall install works. (Step 1 of Quick install above.)
copilot plugin marketplace update alex-mall	Refresh the local catalog cache from GitHub. The Mall self-curates weekly; the local cache doesn't auto-refresh. Run this when a new plugin was added to the Mall since your last install. Omit the name to update all registered marketplaces at once.
copilot plugin marketplace browse alex-mall	List every plugin available in the Mall with descriptions. Read-only.
copilot plugin marketplace remove alex-mall	Unregister the Mall. Refuses if any of its plugins are currently installed; add --force to also uninstall those plugins in one command.

Also: copilot plugin marketplace list shows every registered marketplace, including the two built-in defaults (copilot-plugins, awesome-copilot) that don't need registration.

Removing when plugins are installed

Two paths:

Safe path — uninstall plugins first, then unregister:

# Option 1: uninstall the whole constellation cleanly (uses uninstall-constellation skill from Chat)
# From Copilot Chat: /alex-act-manager uninstall-constellation

# Option 2: uninstall individual plugins manually
copilot plugin uninstall alex-act-core@alex-mall
copilot plugin uninstall alex-act-illustrator-plugin@alex-mall
# ... and so on

# Then unregister the marketplace
copilot plugin marketplace remove alex-mall

One-command teardown — removes the marketplace AND uninstalls its plugins:

copilot plugin marketplace remove alex-mall --force

Windows only: if VS Code is running when you invoke either path, the CLI will hit os error 5 on the plugin uninstalls because VS Code holds file handles on the installed plugin trees. Close all VS Code windows first (File → Exit), open a fresh PowerShell terminal (NOT VS Code's integrated terminal), and run the commands there. The uninstall-constellation skill's generated script bakes this guard in automatically.

What this is

Alex ACT Core is the baseline plugin — the minimal always-on brain that every heir needs regardless of domain. It sits at the bottom of a three-layer stack:

Layer	What it ships	Example
Baseline (this plugin)	Always-on epistemic discipline plus reusable reasoning, safety, communication, and engineering skills	act-pass, critical-thinking, problem-framing-audit, meditation, lint-clean-markdown
Specialization (Mall opt-in)	Domain plugins heirs install as needed	alex-act-illustrator-plugin (visual authoring), future Azure / Fabric / M365 plugins
Local customization (.github/skills/local/ in each heir)	Heir-specific customizations	Whatever the heir invented for their own project

What Core is NOT:

• Not the Copilot CLI itself — Core rides on top of Copilot CLI + Chat
• Not a shared-memory service. Native Copilot memory provides the baseline user, repository, and session tiers.
• Not the Mall itself — the Mall lives in Alex_ACT_Plugin_Mall and self-curates per ADR-008
• Not a visual-authoring bundle — chart authoring, SVG banners, print figures, and AI imagery live in alex-act-illustrator-plugin, not Core
• Not a lifecycle plugin — install, status, workspace bootstrap, updates, and removal live in alex-act-manager
• Not a conversion bundle — document conversion lives in alex-act-document-tools

Continuity After Shared Memory Deprecation

Native Copilot user, repository, and session memory are the default persistence layers. Repository-root HANDOFF.md carries versioned project execution state, and meditation performs explicit end-of-session consolidation into native memory, skills, instructions, chronicles, or handoffs.

Core no longer ships the Alex_ACT_Memory client, tier-selection skill, or automatic memory-triggers instruction. That means storage continuity remains, but automatic capture of every correction, preference, repeated pattern, or significant decision is not guaranteed by Alex ACT. The independent Memory repository remains available only as an explicitly adopted utility for governed cross-user channels or encrypted profiles.

Why the plugin?

Under the v1 heir-template model, Alex_ACT_Edition was a template each heir bootstrapped into its own .github/. Upgrading meant N-heir manual bootstraps. Under the plugin-native model, Core lives in one place (this repo → Mall) and every heir picks it up on next session via copilot plugin update alex-act-core. Fork-and-freeze on 2026-07-26 established that the plugin-native lineage runs alongside the frozen v1 compatibility line rather than replacing it in place.

Full reasoning in the Steward Plan (private governance record) (twelve chapters: overview → distribution mechanism → topology → migration strategy → nomenclature).

Layout

Alex_ACT_Core/
├── manifest.json               # Mall-side plugin metadata (identity, assets, install paths)
├── README.md                   # (this file)
├── CHANGELOG.md                # Keep a Changelog format
├── LICENSE                     # MIT
├── .gitignore
├── .markdownlint.json
├── .github/                    # Copilot Chat + CLI discovery surface
│   ├── copilot-instructions.md
│   ├── config/                 # brand-palette.json
│   ├── skills/                 # 29 baseline framework, reasoning, safety, and craft skills
│   ├── instructions/           # 17 sources (16 distributed by Manager + 1 pattern-applied)
│   └── prompts/                # 14 slash-command prompts
└── .vscode/                    # workspace settings for self-dogfooding

Same layout as alex-act-illustrator-plugin — the proven Steward-authored CLI plugin pattern.

Install

Prerequisites (once per machine):

• Copilot CLI ≥ 1.0.75 — install docs. Verify with copilot --version. If already installed, update with winget upgrade --id GitHub.CopilotCLI (Windows).
• GitHub CLI authenticated — gh auth login and confirm with gh auth status.

Full brand-new-user walkthrough (four personas, six install stages, anti-patterns): see Alex ACT Core install guide.

Install from the Alex ACT Mall

Register the mall as a marketplace (one-time, per machine):

copilot plugin marketplace add fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall

Then install Core:

copilot plugin install alex-act-core@alex-mall

Installs at user scope — Core becomes active in every workspace on the machine. That's the correct behavior; Core is an identity plugin per PLUGIN-INTEGRATION.md § 2.

Publication status. The Mall and Core entry are live and publicly available as alex-act-core@alex-mall.

Verify the install

copilot plugin list

You should see alex-act-core@alex-mall with the current version.

VS Code 1.131 compatibility

Keep chat.useAgentSkills set to true, and set github.copilot.chat.skillTool.enabled to false. This works around microsoft/vscode#314772: it disables only the experimental generic skill resolver, not Agent Skills. Start a new Agent chat or reload VS Code after changing the setting.

Lifecycle management

Use alex-act-manager@alex-mall for installation, status, updates, uninstallation, and configuration. Core's namespaced lifecycle commands remain available as thin compatibility redirects.

Configure specializations (optional)

Use Manager's lifecycle commands from Copilot Chat. Core retains only thin namespaced compatibility redirects:

• /alex-act-manager install-constellation — installs selected plugins, repairs the brain spine, and enables installed plugins at user scope
• /alex-act-manager bootstrap-workspace — previews and consent-gates repository-scoped Markdown Preview CSS, workspace settings, and selective .gitignore tracking
• /alex-act-manager plugin-status — read-only inventory of what's installed at user + repo scope
• /alex-act-manager update-plugins — safe update workflow with per-plugin CHANGELOG reading and consent for breaking changes
• /alex-act-document-tools convert — routes supported Markdown, HTML, Word, email, and plain-text conversions

Full walkthrough with slash-command examples: USER-EXPERIENCE Stages 3–5.

Update Core

Copilot CLI does not auto-update plugins — updates are manual and version-pinned.

copilot plugin update alex-act-core

Read the CHANGELOG before applying a version that carries breaking changes. Prefer Manager for the safer update workflow; /alex-act-core update-plugins redirects to Manager's CHANGELOG and consent flow.

Uninstall

copilot plugin uninstall alex-act-core

Prefer Manager for constellation removal; Core's /alex-act-core uninstall-constellation is a thin compatibility redirect.

Troubleshooting. If the uninstall fails with either:

• Access is denied (os error 5) on Windows — close every VS Code window first. Copilot Chat's active MCP servers hold file handles on plugin binaries.
• Plugin "alex-act-core" is not installed with the plugin still showing in copilot plugin list [disabled] — you have a zombie entry in ~/.copilot/config.json's installedPlugins array.

Both failure modes and their fixes (including a working two-file cleanup pattern) are documented in USER-EXPERIENCE.md § Optional — start from a clean slate.

Optional document conversion

Install alex-act-document-tools@alex-mall when a project needs Markdown, HTML, Word, email, or plain-text conversion. That plugin owns converter prerequisites, execution, and validation; Core's /alex-act-core convert command is a temporary redirect only.

Roadmap

Growth continues through evidence-gated proposals per Alex ACT Core. The Both-classified inventory (framework baseline shipped to Core) is complete as of Batch 10 (2026-07-30). Future additions come from Steward's brain plan Part II under Both classification or as new proposals. See Steward's brain plan Part II for the current candidate pipeline.

Related

• Alex_ACT_Core — top-of-chain, author + curator of every shipped artefact
• Alex_ACT_Illustrator_Plugin — first shipped Steward CLI plugin; proves the transport
• Alex_ACT_Manager — preferred lifecycle management for installation, status, updates, uninstallation, and configuration
• Alex_ACT_Document_Tools — optional document conversion and shared converter runtime
• Alex_ACT_Plugin_Mall — CLI-native plugin marketplace v3.0.0 GA (2026-07-28)
• Alex_ACT_Edition — frozen v1 heir-template compatibility surface (v4.2.0, 2026-07-28)
• Steward Plan Phase 3: gap #1 — this repo's creation is the partial resolution

License

MIT — same as sibling plugins.