Publishing a domain pack

Major domain packs can ship as scoped npm packages (@carina/pack-*) and can also be listed on the Carina Skills Hub. The current public kernel package is carina-agent; the future scoped @verlox/carina-core package will ship pack metadata only, with pack bodies as opt-in installs.

Package layout

Use packages/packs/_template/ as a starting point. A publishable pack includes:

my-pack/
  package.json       # name: @carina/pack-<slug>, carina.pack → pack.json
  pack.json          # manifest: name, version, description, skillCount
  src/index.ts       # exports { skills, systemSuffix }
  skills.ts          # PackSkillInput[]
  prompts/system.ts  # optional systemSuffix string
  tools/             # optional domain tools
  data/              # optional static domain data
  README.md

For the future scoped package split, package.json will declare:

{
  "name": "@verlox/pack-property",
  "peerDependencies": { "@verlox/carina-core": "^0.2.0" },
  "imports": { "#core/*": "@verlox/carina-core/internal/*" },
  "carina": { "pack": "./pack.json", "slug": "property-uk" }
}

Pack code imports core helpers via #core/... (resolved to @verlox/carina-core/internal/* at publish time after the scoped package split).

npm publish

1. Bump semver in pack.json and package.json.

2. Build core and the pack from the monorepo root:

   cd core.carinaai.uk
   pnpm build
   pnpm --filter @verlox/pack-property build

3. Publish from the pack directory:

   cd packages/packs/property-uk
   npm publish --access public

4. Register the npm name in core PACK_NPM_PACKAGES (src/skills/pack-discovery.ts) and add npmPackage on the manifest entry in src/skills/pack-manifests.ts.

Hub listing

After npm publish (or for hub-only packs):

carina pack publish property-uk

This uploads a tarball to the Skills Hub registry. Users can install with:

carina pack install property-uk

npm install path

Users can install directly from npm:

npm install @verlox/pack-property
export ACTIVE_SKILL_PACKS=property-uk
carina chat

Or use the CLI flag:

carina pack install property-uk --npm

Core resolves packs in this order: ~/.carina/packs/, monorepo packages/packs/ (dev), legacy src/skills/packs/ when CARINA_DEV=1, then installed @carina/pack-* in node_modules.

Large corpora

If a pack RAG corpus exceeds npm size limits, split data into a companion package (for example @verlox/pack-property-data) and document the dependency in the pack README. Keep pack semver independent of the Carina kernel package.

v1 extracted packs

Slug	npm package	Status
property-uk	@verlox/pack-property	Published
healthcare	@verlox/pack-health	Published
borehole-africa	@verlox/pack-borehole-africa	Private WIP (ABBIS corpus)

Remaining built-in packs still live under src/skills/packs/ until extracted in a later phase.