Author mabl tests from your AI coding agent

For the full index of agent-friendly pages, see llms.txt.

The mabl CLI includes test authoring skills that you can use in an AI coding agent, such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot, to plan and build mabl tests without leaving your editor.

With the mabl authoring skill, you can:

Plan tests conversationally: describe what you want to cover in natural language, and the mabl agent works with you to refine a test outline.
Build tests in the cloud or locally: generate the test in the cloud, or run a local authoring session against an app on your machine, including private environments the cloud can’t reach.
Author in parallel: after implementing a change, you can prompt your agent to create tests covering each affected page and author them in parallel, including locally in headless mode.

The mabl agent authoring commands support the same agentic test creation capabilities as the mabl MCP and Desktop App. They’re a good fit for teams who prefer to build tests through coding agent workflows or take a more scripted approach. This article explains how to set up and use the authoring skill.

Setup

Prerequisites

Before installing the authoring skill, make sure you have the following set up:

An AI coding agent that supports MCPs, such as Claude Code, Cursor, VSCode, GitHub Copilot, or any other client that reads an AGENTS.md file.
The latest version of the mabl CLI

Install agent skills

Run the following install command for your agent of choice:

mabl agent install [client]

Replace [client] with the name of your agent, such as claude, cursor, vscode, copilot, or agents-md for other tools. For example, if you’re installing the agent skills in Claude Code, run this command:

mabl agent install claude

This command installs two workflows in your coding agent:

mabl-plan-test - create mabl tests through conversational planning
mabl-debug - diagnose or fix failures from mabl cloud runs

Author tests

Plan a test

After installing the skills, ask your coding agent to create a new test:

“Let’s plan a mabl test to validate the new feature I just built.”

The authoring skill picks up the request automatically and starts planning the test. Work with your coding agent to refine the test outline until it captures what you want to cover.

Start an authoring session

When you’re happy with the outline, tell the agent whether to generate the test in the cloud or locally against an app running on your machine:

“Start a local authoring session and point it at http://localhost:4000”

Whether you initiate a session in the cloud or locally, your agent reports back when authoring completes.

Author in parallel

Local authoring runs in headless mode, so you can start several sessions at once. Prompt your agent to create tests for each page affected by a change, and the sessions author in parallel in your local environment.

Kicking off multiple local authoring sessions

For the full list of mabl agent authoring commands and their options, see the mabl CLI command reference or run mabl agent authoring -h in the terminal.