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Paths

Acolyte uses one XDG-style global layout on macOS and Linux. Environment variables override the defaults. Relative paths in XDG variables are ignored per spec.

CategoryDefaultEnv override
Config~/.config/acolyte/$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/acolyte/
Data~/.local/share/acolyte/$XDG_DATA_HOME/acolyte/
State~/.local/state/acolyte/$XDG_STATE_HOME/acolyte/
Launcher~/.local/bin/acolyte—
Installed binary~/.local/lib/acolyte/acolyte—

What goes where

  • Config — user-edited settings and credentials: config.toml, credentials, oauth.json
  • Data — persistent application data: memory.db, sessions.json, trace.db, projects/, bin/<version>/acolyte (staged updates)
  • State — runtime state that can be regenerated: daemons/, locks/, client.log, update-check.json

Project scope

Project-scoped config is always at <cwd>/.acolyte/config.toml, regardless of platform. Project .acolyte/ is workspace metadata, not global state.

Skills

Skills load from <cwd>/.agents/skills and ~/.agents/skills, outside the XDG layout: .agents/ is the cross-tool SKILL.md convention. Each skill is a directory holding a SKILL.md, and a symlink to one loads the same as a real directory.

Plugins

Plugins load from <cwd>/.agents/plugins and ~/.agents/plugins, beside skills and outside the XDG layout. Each plugin is a directory holding a plugin.json, and a symlink to one loads the same as a real directory. A project plugin’s data directory is <cwd>/.acolyte/plugin-data/<name>; a user plugin’s is <data>/plugins/<name>. See Plugins.

Key files