Custom agent setup

Tessl will perform set-up automatically for certain agents during tessl init by detecting artifacts in the folder. The following instructions will describe how to configure any agent to use Tessl via MCP.

Configuration Steps

From the root of your project, determine if there is a .tessl folder or tessl.json

• If you've not already done so, you may wish to start your coding agent in your project to generate agent related files. Now close it.

• If Tessl has never been run, .tessl folder or tessl.json will not exist. Execute tessl init to install the tessl directories and tessl.json.

  • Skip the agent setup if it is not one of the preconfigured agents. You will configure this in the following steps.

Once the .tessl directory and files are present, you will perform the following high level steps to configure MCP and steer it to use Tessl. Examples of these files that need be modified and their configurations can be found in Example configurations.

1. Configure the Tessl MCP server to run on the particular project.

   • Why? It will allow your agent to access context from installed tiles through the Tessl exposed tools

2. Set-up the Tessl steering by having your agent automatically load .tessl/RULES.md.

   • Example: adding @.tess/RULES.md in your AGENTS.md

   • Why? It will load the configuration to help your agent use the Tessl MCP effectively plus any other steering from the tiles you installed.

   Once your agent is configured, start it, and you may be requested to authorize Tessl.

Example configurations

Examples for configuring common agents can be found below.

Gemini

MCP setup

Add to .gemini/settings.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tessl": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "tessl",
      "args": [
        "mcp",
        "start"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Steering setup

Create a GEMINI.md and add as text:

 @.tessl/RULES.md

Codex

MCP setup

Create a ~/.codex/config.toml or a .codex/config.toml in your project directory with the following content:

[mcp_servers.tessl]
type = "stdio"
command = "tessl"
args = ["mcp", "start"]

Steering setup

If not already present in your project, create an AGENTS.md file with the following content:

# Agent Rules

@.tessl/RULES.md follow the [instructions](.tessl/RULES.md)