BMAD Completely Changes How You Install It, and That's Great News

If you use the BMAD Method with an AI coding assistant, you probably installed it with this command:

npx bmad-method install

BMAD is dropping that command. On the dev branch, BMAD has no installer of its own. It is now a flat tree of skills. You add them with the generic Skills CLI, or through a plugin marketplace in Claude Code or Codex:

npx skills add bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD

We think this is a good decision. Here is what changed, and why.

What happened

The change arrived on 5 September 2026 with PR #2768 (merge commit 255c651). Its title: “distribute BMAD as a flat skills tree via npx skills and plugin marketplaces”. Three commits inside it show the scope:

• 3018779 removes the installer entry point and its dependencies.
• 3c12a07 removes the npm publish workflow.
• 636f8e2 removes the publish script and the deprecated v6 shim skills.

The repository now has a skills/ folder with one directory per skill. Each directory holds the skill’s instructions and a small manifest. The dev branch no longer has a package.json. The Python tools run through uv, so you now need uv as well.

A skill now does the installer’s work. The new bmad hub skill has two commands:

• bmad setup creates missing files and repairs stale ones. Run it after the first install and after every update.
• bmad status changes nothing. It shows the installed versions and what to run next.

The updates come from the channel you installed with: npx skills update, or your plugin marketplace.

You can choose between three install routes:

# Skills CLI, any tool that supports skills
npx skills add bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD

# Claude Code, inside a session
/plugin marketplace add bmad-code-org/bmad-plugins

# Codex, from the terminal
codex plugin marketplace add bmad-code-org/bmad-plugins

Why we like it

BMAD is one way to give AI-assisted development a structure. It is not the only one. If your team works with AI assistants but without a framework, try one. You will see the difference quickly, in the code and in the reviews.

Here is why we think dropping the installer is the right decision.

One format instead of one integration per assistant. The old installer knew each assistant individually and wrote files into that assistant’s own folder. Every new assistant meant new installer code, and the list of supported assistants only grew. Skills are a shared format. A community tester confirmed that the new tree works end-to-end in opencode, although BMAD has no code for opencode.

It fits the tools teams already use. Many developers already use the Skills CLI for skills from other sources. So do we. We use it in several projects, and we share our own internal skills across teams with it. BMAD is no longer a separate tool with its own installer, its own update routine and its own rules for where files go. It becomes one more source in the setup we already have. BMAD is not the first project to ship this way. Matt Pocock’s skills come through the Skills CLI or a Claude Code plugin, with a setup skill you run once, like bmad setup.

In practice, npx skills list shows BMAD next to your other skills, and npx skills update updates BMAD with the rest. You commit project-scoped skills with the repository, like any other skill. Teams on Claude Code or Codex get the same through the plugin marketplace they already use. And no installer version can drift apart from the skills it installs.

You choose what you install. The installer worked in modules: you picked a module and got all its skills. With the Skills CLI you choose individual skills. If you only want bmad-build, you install it with the hub and the two module folders the hub needs. Nothing else enters your project:

npx skills add bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD --skill bmad --skill bmod-core-tools --skill bmod-method --skill bmad-build

The bmod- names are not typos. BMAD sorts its skills into modules, and each bmod- folder describes one module: its version and its list of skills. The hub reads these folders for bmad setup and bmad status. This convention exists only on the dev branch so far. No release includes it yet, and 6.12 does not have it.

The repository is the release. Before, the installer transformed the source on GitHub into an installation. Now you get exactly the files you read on GitHub. When a skill surprises you, you open the same file your assistant reads. BMAD exists to steer an AI assistant, so this transparency matters.

A whole class of bugs disappears. Two install routes produce two layouts on disk, and every skill has to work with both. BMAD had exactly this problem. Its skills called helper scripts in _bmad/scripts/, and only the npm installer creates that folder. After an install through the plugin marketplace, the folder did not exist. The scripts never ran, and nobody noticed. The skills used a fallback, and its output looked the same. With two layouts, one of them eventually breaks without anyone noticing. Removing the second install route is the honest fix.

What to keep in mind

BMAD has not released this yet. The latest release is still v6.12.0 from 4 September, which uses the old installer. Fixes for 6.12 continue on the V6.12 branch. The version on dev is the placeholder 6.13.0-next.

In parallel, the maintainers preview a larger planning redesign they call v7. It replaces epics.md and sprint-status.yaml with an “initiative” layout built on tickets. It also brings a v6-to-v7 migration for existing projects. The maintainers have not announced whether the new install routes ship as 6.13 or with v7.

Some problems remain open:

• The official add-on modules (Test Architect, Creative Intelligence Suite, Builder and others) still reference the old installer. No documentation explains yet how to add them to a core from the new install routes (#2841).
• The BMAD scripts expect to own the project’s .venv. This conflicts with Python projects that manage their own (#2823).
• You now need Node.js, Git and uv.

Our advice: keep production projects on 6.12 for now. Test the new install route in a separate branch or worktree. Then you are ready when the release arrives.

Conclusion

An installer promises that the project knows your environment better than you do. BMAD runs inside half a dozen AI assistants, and each of them changes every month. With every change, that promise became harder to keep. BMAD now stops making it. It ships plain skills, lets standard tools install them, and puts setup into a skill the assistant can run and repair. You get fewer hidden steps and more choice. We think that is the right trade.

If you want help to give your team’s AI work this kind of structure, our Guided AI program does exactly that.