AI Tooling

Payload publishes an agent skill inside the payload package. Because it ships with the package, the guidance your AI assistant reads always matches the version of Payload you have installed.

The skill lives at node_modules/payload/skills/payload/ once payload is installed.

What's included

The skill's SKILL.md opens with a Quick Reference table mapping common tasks to the relevant reference file, so your assistant only opens the reference docs a given task needs rather than loading everything up front. Those reference docs cover:

• Collections: auth, uploads, drafts, and live preview configurations
• Fields: all field types including relationships, arrays, blocks, joins, and virtual fields
• Hooks: beforeChange, afterChange, beforeValidate, and field hooks
• Access Control: collection, field, and global patterns including RBAC and multi-tenant, plus advanced row-level security
• Queries: Local API, REST, and GraphQL with complex operators
• Database Adapters: MongoDB, Postgres, and SQLite configuration and transactions
• Endpoints: custom collection and global API routes
• Plugin Development: plugin architecture and package structure
• Advanced Features: jobs queue, localization, and other advanced configuration

Setup

New projects created with create-payload-app are configured automatically with an AGENTS.md at the project root. Pass --no-agent to skip it.

For an existing project, add AGENTS.md at the project root:

Claude Code plugin

Payload also publishes the skill as a Claude Code plugin. The plugin tracks the main branch rather than your installed version, so prefer it only when contributing to Payload itself or when you specifically want unreleased guidance.