Validate an Apple Core AI export entry and skill plugin before you touch a Mac

The Stack

Steps

1. 1

   Validate the registry entry and the plugin manifest

   Before installing anything, check that the model registry entry is well-formed (a real org/name Hugging Face id targeting .aimodel) and that the agent-skill plugin manifest parses with a named plugin. CI does this offline. Resolving the id live and exporting need the Apple toolchain and are fenced.

   cat > registry.json <<'JSON'
   {
     "models": [
       {
         "id": "llama-3.2-1b-instruct",
         "hf_repo": "meta-llama/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct",
         "format": ".aimodel",
         "recipe": "models/llama-3.2-1b/export.py"
       }
     ]
   }
   JSON
   cat > marketplace.json <<'JSON'
   {
     "name": "coreai-models",
     "owner": "apple",
     "plugins": [
       {
         "name": "coreai-skills",
         "source": "./",
         "description": "Skills that teach a coding agent to use Core AI"
       }
     ]
   }
   JSON
   node -e '
   const fs = require("fs");
   function bad(m) { console.error("BAD: " + m); process.exit(1); }
   const reg = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync("registry.json", "utf8"));
   const models = reg.models || [];
   if (!models.length) bad("registry has no models");
   for (const m of models) {
     if (!m.id) bad("a model entry has no id");
     const repo = m.hf_repo || "";
     const parts = repo.split("/");
     if (parts.length !== 2 || !parts[0] || !parts[1] || repo.indexOf(" ") !== -1) bad("hf_repo is not a well-formed org/name id: " + m.id);
     if (m.format !== ".aimodel") bad("model " + m.id + " does not target .aimodel");
   }
   const mk = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync("marketplace.json", "utf8"));
   if (!mk.name) bad("plugin manifest missing name");
   const plugins = mk.plugins || [];
   if (!plugins.length || !plugins[0].name) bad("plugin manifest has no named plugin");
   console.log("config OK: " + models.length + " registry model(s), hf ids well-formed, .aimodel target; plugin manifest " + mk.name + " exposes " + plugins[0].name);
   '

2. 2

   Export and run on a Mac (the model step, not checked by CI)

   On macOS 27 with Xcode 27: install the plugin (/plugin marketplace add then /plugin install coreai-skills@coreai-models), run uv run coreai.model.registry --list-models, pick a small supported model, and walk the working-with-coreai skill to export a .aimodel and run it on-device. All fenced, it needs Apple silicon and the Core AI runtime.