Claude Managed Agents — Claude Code Skill

A Claude Code skill that gives Claude deep, always-available knowledge of the Claude Managed Agents API — Anthropic's hosted infrastructure for running Claude as an autonomous agent in a cloud container.

Instead of you having to paste documentation or explain the API every time, this skill loads the right context automatically whenever you're building with managed agents.

Official documentation: platform.claude.com/docs/en/managed-agents/overview This skill is a curated companion to those docs — focused on patterns, gotchas, and production usage. Always refer to the official docs for the latest API changes, new features, and full reference material.

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What This Skill Covers

| Topic | Where | |---|---| | Agent / Environment / Session creation | SKILL.md | | The event loop, stream ordering, stop_reason handling | SKILL.md + references/events.md | | All event types (user ↔ agent ↔ session ↔ span) | references/events.md | | Built-in tools, custom tools, tool permissions | references/tools.md | | MCP server integration (two-step auth pattern) | references/tools.md + references/vaults-and-mcp.md | | Vaults and credential management | references/vaults-and-mcp.md | | Container specs, pre-installed runtimes, filesystem layout | references/container-reference.md | | Session CRUD, usage/stats fields, mid-session resource management | references/session-management.md | | Outcomes, Multiagent orchestration, Memory Stores (research preview) | references/research-preview.md | | System prompt engineering for agents, cost monitoring, debugging, testing, silent failures | references/production-patterns.md | | Rate limits, branding guidelines, common mistakes | SKILL.md |

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Installation

Option 1 — Clone directly into skills folder

git clone https://github.com/0xArx/claude-managed-agents-skill \
  ~/.claude/skills/claude-managed-agents

Option 2 — Copy manually

Download or clone this repository, then copy the folder:

cp -r claude-managed-agents-skill ~/.claude/skills/claude-managed-agents

Option 3 — One-liner (curl)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && \
  curl -L https://github.com/0xArx/claude-managed-agents-skill/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz \
  | tar -xz -C ~/.claude/skills --strip-components=1 \
    --one-top-level=claude-managed-agents

That's it. Claude Code picks up skills automatically from ~/.claude/skills/ — no restart needed.

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Requirements

• Claude Code — any recent version
• An ANTHROPIC_API_KEY with access to the managed-agents-2026-04-01 beta

Note: The managed agents beta is not universally available yet. If you don't have access, request it here.

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How It Works

Claude Code uses a progressive disclosure system for skills:

1. The skill name and description are always in context — Claude uses these to decide when to activate the skill.
2. SKILL.md loads in full whenever the skill triggers — covers the complete build flow.
3. Reference files (references/) load on demand when Claude needs deeper detail on a specific topic.

This means the skill costs essentially zero context when you're not using it, and loads exactly what's needed when you are.

When does it trigger?

The skill activates automatically when you:

• Ask about client.beta.agents, client.beta.sessions, or client.beta.environments
• Want to stream agent events or build an event loop
• Ask about tool permission policies, custom tools, or MCP connectors
• Mention outcomes, multiagent orchestration, or memory stores
• Ask how to run Claude for long-running or async tasks
• Want Claude to execute bash, write files, or browse the web autonomously in a container

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File Structure

claude-managed-agents/
├── SKILL.md                          # Core skill — always loaded when triggered
└── references/
    ├── events.md                     # Complete event type reference + full event loop pattern
    ├── tools.md                      # Built-in tools, custom tools, MCP setup
    ├── vaults-and-mcp.md             # Vault lifecycle, credential types, MCP auth
    ├── container-reference.md        # Container specs, runtimes, filesystem layout
    ├── session-management.md         # Session CRUD, usage/stats, mid-session resources
    ├── research-preview.md           # Outcomes, Multiagent, Memory Stores
    └── production-patterns.md        # System prompts, cost monitoring, debugging, testing

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Key Things Claude Will Know

Most managed agents bugs come from a handful of non-obvious patterns. This skill teaches Claude all of them:

Stream ordering — Open the event stream before sending the message, not after. The API buffers events but race conditions in Python are real.

stop_reason on every idle — session.status_idle fires both when the agent is done and when it needs your input (tool confirmation, custom tool result). Always check stop_reason.type.

MCP auth split — The server URL goes on the agent definition. Credentials go in a Vault attached at session creation. Never put auth tokens directly on the agent.

Agent version locking — Every agent.update() increments the version. You must pass the current version back or the update will fail.

Custom tool hang — If you define a custom tool and don't handle agent.custom_tool_use in your event loop, the agent silently waits forever.

GitHub token rotation — Update a GitHub resource mid-session via sessions.resources.update(). No need to delete and recreate the session.

session.deleted terminates the stream — If the session is deleted while you're listening, you'll get a session.deleted event and no further events will arrive.

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What This Skill Is NOT

This is a Claude Code skill — documentation that helps Claude write code using the Managed Agents API. It is not:

• An agent itself
• The Anthropic pre-built agent skills (xlsx, pdf, docx, pptx) — those are document-processing capabilities agents use during tasks
• A wrapper or SDK of any kind

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API Coverage

Built against the managed-agents-2026-04-01 beta header (April 2026).

Research Preview features (outcomes, multiagent, memory_stores) require:

anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01-research-preview

and separate access approval.

For the full, always-up-to-date API reference, visit the official docs: platform.claude.com/docs/en/managed-agents/overview

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Contributing

Found something missing, outdated, or wrong? PRs welcome.

The skill is intentionally focused on patterns and gotchas — the things that aren't obvious from reading the API types. When contributing, ask: would a developer hit this on their first or second day with the API? If yes, it belongs here.

Adding content:

• Core concepts and the build flow → SKILL.md
• New event types or stop_reason variants → references/events.md
• Tool configuration patterns → references/tools.md
• Keep each reference file under ~300 lines; split if needed

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License

MIT — use it, fork it, remix it.