pack

Use this when you want a portable, self-contained file, that runs anywhere without needing agency-lang installed.

agency pack hello.agency -o hello.mjs
# Packed hello.agency -> hello.mjs

./hello.mjs
# (or `node hello.mjs`)

The output is an ESM module bundled with esbuild. The agency runtime + its dependencies (like smoltalk) + any .agency imports + any stdlib imports are all inlined. The resulting file is executable (mode 0o755 with a #!/usr/bin/env node shebang).

This is useful when you want to:

• hand an agent to someone who doesn't have Node packages installed
• deploy an agent to a minimal container
• third useful thing because rule of threes is important

Options

flag	default	meaning
-o, --output <file>	agent.mjs	output file path
--target <target>	node	output target; currently only node is supported. sea (Node single-executable application) is a planned future target

Config

You can override the defaults from agency.json:

{
  "pack": {
    "format": "esm",        // or "cjs"
    "target": "node20",     // esbuild target string, e.g. "node22"
    "external": []          // extra bare specifiers to leave external
  },
  "verbose": true            // emit bundling progress and esbuild diagnostics during `agency pack`
}

Limitations

• Programs that read .agency stdlib files at runtime (e.g. anything dynamic) will hit Could not find package root. Most user programs do not — the stdlib is consumed at compile time. If you need it inlined for runtime use, file an issue.
• API keys (OPENAI_API_KEY, etc.) still need to be present in the environment of the machine running the packed script.

See also

• You can easily pack up your agent as a web server with serve.