apm vs asm
Microsoft's dependency manager for agent context — declare skills, prompts, plugins and MCP servers in apm.yml; one install reproduces the setup across 8 clients with lockfile pinning and org policy. — versus — Scriptable skill manager for AI coding agents — install, search, dedupe-audit and security-scan skills across 19 providers, with --json/--yes on every command so agents and CI can drive it.
Both manage agent skills across tools, at different layers: asm is an imperative, machine-driven CLI for installing and auditing skills on one workstation; apm is a declarative project manifest — apm.yml + lockfile ships with the repo so the whole team reproduces the same agent context.
| apm | asm | |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | 3.3k | 730 |
| Forks | 290 | 61 |
| Language | Python | TypeScript |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Last activity | today | 5 days ago |
| Topics | coding, skills | coding, skills |
| Curated connections | 3 | 5 |
apm — the curator's take
The team/enterprise answer: apm.yml ships with the repo, so `git clone && apm install` gives every developer identical agent context — lockfile, transitive dependencies, drift detection, and an apm-policy.yml a security team can enforce with tighten-only inheritance. It's the only skill manager with a real governance story (SBOM export, MCP trust gates). NOT for quick personal use — manifest ceremony is overkill for 'just install this skill', where skillkit or asm is faster — and it targets 8 major clients, not the 40+ long tail. Young project; treat the roadmap as direction, not promise.
asm — the curator's take
Pick it when the CLI consumer is a machine: every command is non-interactive and JSON-emitting, so your agent or CI pipeline can inventory, install, and dedupe skills without a human — that plus `asm audit` (finds duplicate/stale skills scattered across 19 providers' hidden dirs) is the differentiator. NOT the breadth play: ~4.3K curated skills vs skillkit's 400K firehose, and no format translation between agent dialects. Solo-maintainer project — fine for personal/team tooling, but if you need org-level reproducibility and governance, apm's manifest+policy model is the grown-up answer.