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niminal

Files and directories

Global paths

Section titled “Global paths”
Path Purpose
~/.niminal/config.json User settings
~/.niminal/auth.json Provider credentials
~/.niminal/keybindings.json Interactive TUI shortcuts
~/.niminal/themes/*.json Custom TUI themes
~/.niminal/sessions/ Append-only session JSONL files
~/.niminal/sessions/.trash/ Deleted sessions
~/.niminal/trust.json Per-workspace trust decisions
~/.niminal/models-dev.json Cached models.dev catalog
~/.niminal/skills/<name>/SKILL.md Global skills
~/.niminal/prompts/*.md Global prompt templates
~/.niminal/tools/<name>/tool.json Global external tools
~/.niminal/extensions/<name>/extension.json Global extensions
~/.niminal/AGENTS.md, AGENTS.override.md, CLAUDE.md Global instructions
~/.niminal/SYSTEM.md Global system prompt replacement
~/.niminal/APPEND_SYSTEM.md Global system prompt append

Portable global roots shared with other agents:

Path Purpose
~/.agents/skills/ Portable global skills
~/.agents/prompts/ Global prompt templates
~/.agents/tools/ Global external tools
~/.agents/extensions/ Global extensions

Later discovery roots win on name conflicts for skills, prompts, and external tools. Extensions do not override by name; every matching extension starts.

Project paths (trusted workspace)

Section titled “Project paths (trusted workspace)”
Path Purpose
<workspace>/.niminal/permissions.json Project tool grants
<workspace>/.niminal/skills/ Project skills
<workspace>/.niminal/prompts/ Project prompt templates
<workspace>/.niminal/tools/ Project external tools
<workspace>/.niminal/extensions/ Project extensions
<workspace>/.agent/, .agents/ Alternate project roots for skills, prompts, tools
<workspace>/AGENTS.md, AGENTS.override.md, CLAUDE.md Project instructions
<workspace>/.niminal/SYSTEM.md Project system prompt replacement
<workspace>/.niminal/APPEND_SYSTEM.md Project system prompt append

Project instructions load without trust. SYSTEM.md, APPEND_SYSTEM.md, permissions, skills, prompts, tools, and extensions require trust (or --approve for one process).

Session files

Section titled “Session files”

Session files are <microsecond-id>.jsonl directly under ~/.niminal/sessions/. The first record identifies the workspace. Recovery backups use the suffix .recovery-<timestamp> beside the original file.

Config writes

Section titled “Config writes”

/provider, /model, /thinking, and /theme always write ~/.niminal/config.json. RPC set_steering_mode and set_follow_up_mode write there too.

There is no project-level config overlay file.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”