Prerequisites¶
What's a coding agent?¶
A coding agent is an AI assistant that understands a goal described in plain English, explores your codebase, and builds working components — not just autocomplete. You stay in control: you review its work and steer it as you go.
Examples¶
- Claude Code
- Codex CLI
- Cursor
- Gemini CLI
- GitHub Copilot Agent
This course uses Claude Code
The mental model¶
| Concept | Definition |
|---|---|
| Tools | Built-in actions the agent can take: read a file, run a bash command, search the web, edit code. |
| Skills | Domain knowledge bundles the agent loads when it sees a matching task — a playbook for one thing. |
| Commands | Manual shortcuts you type: /commit, /test, /deploy. Triggered by you, not the agent. |
| Hooks | Run automatically at lifecycle events — before an edit, after a commit, on session start. Used for guardrails. |
| Subagents | Specialised workers spawned by the main agent, used to parallelise or isolate complex tasks. |
| Plugin | A package that bundles any of these together — like a Marketplace app for your coding agent. |
Skills¶
A Skill is a folder — sitting in .claude/skills/ (or equivalent) — with a SKILL.md file inside. The agent reads each SKILL.md's description, and when your prompt matches, it loads the full skill on demand.
A skill can bundle more than instructions: reference docs, code patterns, helper scripts, even binaries. It also declares which tools it's allowed to use.
Every SKILL.md file is built from four parts:
| Part | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Frontmatter | Declares the skill's name, description, and allowed tools |
| Discovery prompt | The description field that triggers automatic skill loading |
| Instructions | Step-by-step guidance the agent follows when active |
| References | Paths to supporting files like API docs and code patterns |
---
name: uipath-coded-agents
description: Scaffold, build, run, evaluate, and deploy UiPath coded agents...
allowed-tools: [Read, Edit, Bash(uip:*), Bash(uipath:*)]
---
# How to build a UiPath coded agent
When the user asks for a new coded agent:
1. Run `uipath new --framework langgraph`
2. Create agent.py following the pattern in references/
3. Add an evals/ folder with at least 5 test cases
4. Run `uipath eval` before deploying
## References
- references/sdk-methods.md
- references/langgraph-patterns.md
Coding Agents and UiPath¶
UiPath ships a plugin for Claude Code. It bundles skills, hooks, and references — giving the agent domain knowledge about UiPath products out of the box.
The plugin contains three components:
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| 10+ skills | Domain knowledge for every UiPath product: uipath-agents, uipath-coded-apps, uipath-rpa, uipath-maestro-flow, uipath-platform, uipath-test, and more. |
| 1 subagent | uipath-project-discovery-agent — auto-runs on first contact with a UiPath project and builds context for the agent. |
| Hooks & references | Session-start nudges, activity docs, and allowlists for safe read-only commands. |
The UiPath skill catalog¶
The plugin provides skills across the UiPath platform, including:
| Skill | Description |
|---|---|
uipath-agents |
Scaffold, build, run, evaluate, and deploy coded agents (LangGraph, LlamaIndex, OpenAI Agents) |
uipath-rpa |
Generate and edit RPA workflows (XAML) for Studio Desktop with a discovery-first approach |
uipath-coded-apps |
Push/pull TypeScript + React apps to Studio Web, pack & publish to Orchestrator |
uipath-solution |
Create and deploy solutions |
uipath-maestro-flow |
Create, validate, and debug UiPath Flow projects using the .flow JSON format |
uipath-platform |
Auth, Orchestrator management, solution lifecycle, Integration Service, CLI tools |
uipath-test |
Generate, run, and maintain automated test suites for UiPath projects |
The uip CLI¶
Skills tell your agent how to do a piece of UiPath work. The
uip CLI is how that work
actually reaches the platform — think of the CLI as the hands and the skills as the know-how.
It's the bridge between your machine and your UiPath organization: authenticating, scaffolding projects,
running and publishing automations, and reaching Orchestrator and the other platform services. The same
CLI also installs the skills themselves, with uip skills install, and refreshes them with
uip skills update.
Authentication. The CLI signs in to a UiPath environment and selects a tenant. By default it connects to
cloud.uipath.com; you can point it at another environment with an authority, and pick a tenant either
interactively or by name. Once you're signed in, both the CLI and your agent act inside that organization and
tenant.
To check that you're signed in:
Who runs what. In normal use your coding agent runs most CLI commands for you as it works through a task. You only run the CLI yourself for setup and housekeeping — signing in, installing or refreshing skills, and checking status.