Personas — One Command to Load a Complete AI Engineering Identity

The Problem

Every AI coding agent lets you install plugins — skills, hooks, tools. But when a team of 8 engineers each configures their own AI setup:

Engineer A has TDD skills, doer soul, eslint hooks
Engineer B has outdated TDD skills, thinker soul, no hooks
Engineer C has no skills installed, default soul, custom hooks

Same prompt, 8 different responses. Inconsistent AI output across the team.

New hire joins? They spend 2 hours reading a wiki, installing skills, configuring hooks. Most get it partially right. Some never finish.

Plugins solve the individual developer problem. They don't solve the team standardization problem.

Watch It In Action

One Command

Starting today, Aii CLI v0.14 introduces Workspace Personas:

bash

aii persona use aiiware/full-stack-engineer

This single command loads:

Soul — who the agent IS (personality, communication style, values)
Skills — how it works (code review, API design, debugging methodology)
Hooks — quality gates (lint on write, test coverage checks)
Instructions — behavioral rules (TypeScript strict, TDD, no any types)
Theme — visual identity

The agent doesn't just follow your methodology — it becomes your methodology.

How It Works

Install

bash

# From GitHub
aii persona install github:aiiware/aii-personas/aiiware-full-stack-engineer

# From a local directory
aii persona install ./my-team-persona

Activate

bash

aii persona use aiiware/full-stack-engineer

Switch Roles

bash

# Morning: feature development
aii persona use aiiware/full-stack-engineer
# Agent: TDD, strict types, opinionated, concise

# Afternoon: code review
aii persona use aiiware/code-reviewer
# Agent: severity-based feedback, security-first, constructive

# Pair programming with a junior
aii persona use aiiware/mentor
# Agent: patient, uses analogies, explains step by step

# Back to standalone
aii persona use --none

Check Status

bash

aii persona status
# Active persona: aiiware/full-stack-engineer v0.1.0
#
# Components:
#   Soul:     engineer (bundled)
#   Skills:   code-review, api-design, debugging (bundled)
#   Hooks:    1 active (bundled)
#   Theme:    engineer-dark (bundled)
#   Instructions: "Use TypeScript strict mode. Prefer composition..."

What's Inside a Persona?

A persona is a directory with an aiipack.json manifest at its root:

json

{
  "name": "aiiware/full-stack-engineer",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "soul": { "name": "engineer", "path": "./souls/engineer/" },
  "skills": ["code-review", "tdd", "debugging"],
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [{ "matcher": "Write", "command": "./scripts/lint.sh" }]
  },
  "instructions": "TDD. Strict types. Tests with every change."
}

Each field serves a distinct purpose:

Soul — WHO the agent is. Personality, communication style, values. Built on SoulSpec v0.4 with identity, style, behavioral rhythm, workflow, and output calibration
Skills — HOW it works. Methodology files (SKILL.md) following the Agent Skills standard — compatible with Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Cursor
Hooks — WHAT it enforces. Scripts that run automatically on tool events (lint before write, test after edit)
Instructions — WHAT rules it follows. Injected into the system prompt every turn
Theme — HOW it looks. Visual identity for the terminal UI

Team Onboarding: Before & After

Before personas:

Day 1 — New engineer spends 2 hours configuring AI tooling from a wiki
Day 5 — Code review reveals they forgot the security skill
Day 30 — Intern joins, spends 3 hours because the wiki is outdated
Day 60 — Team has 5 different AI configs. "AI-assisted development is unreliable"

After personas:

Day 1 — aii persona use aiiware/full-stack-engineer — productive in 15 seconds
Day 5 — Security skill was in the persona. Already active
Day 30 — Intern runs the same command. Same result
Day 60 — Consistent output across the team. "AI-assisted development is reliable"

Three Official Personas

We're shipping three reference personas, each with full SoulSpec v0.4 compliance — complete soul files, calibration examples, bundled skills:

Full-Stack Engineer

Concise, opinionated, test-first. Thinks in systems. Challenges assumptions.

Skills: code-review, api-design, debugging
Hooks: lint-check on every write
Instructions: TypeScript strict, TDD, composition over inheritance

Code Reviewer

Thorough, constructive, severity-based. Starts with what's done well.

Skills: review-checklist, security-scan
Hooks: test-coverage reminder
Instructions: Read entire diff first, always actionable feedback

Engineering Mentor

Patient, educational, uses analogies. Teaches by building.

Skills: explain-like-five, pair-programming, code-walkthrough
Instructions: Step-by-step reasoning, never assume prior knowledge

Browse them on GitHub.

Create Your Own

bash

mkdir my-persona && cd my-persona

cat > aiipack.json << 'EOF'
{
  "name": "yourname/my-persona",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "description": "My custom AI persona",
  "author": { "name": "Your Name" },
  "skills": ["my-skill"],
  "instructions": "Your rules here."
}
EOF

mkdir -p skills/my-skill
# Add your SKILL.md files...

# Test locally
aii persona install ./my-persona
aii persona use yourname/my-persona

Also in v0.14

aii skill list/info/install — CLI skill management
aii upgrade — self-update (migrated from aii install)
~/.agents/skills/ discovery — skills from npx skills add auto-discovered
/persona slash command — manage personas in interactive mode
aii doctor shadow detection — catches empty directories shadowing skills
GitHub install with token support — private repo personas for teams

Get Started

bash

# Install or upgrade Aii CLI
npm install -g @aiiware/aii

# Install a persona
aii persona install github:aiiware/aii-personas/aiiware-full-stack-engineer

# Activate it
aii persona use aiiware/full-stack-engineer

# See what changed
aii persona status
aii skill list

One command. Complete identity. Consistent team.