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Customize AdaL

Most agents are fixed at install. AdaL is built to be shaped: teach it new tools, give it domain expertise, rewrite its prompt, and run your own models — customize once and it applies everywhere, from your interactive session to CI runs to the SDK.

Personalize the agent​

  • Custom System Prompt — give the agent project-specific instructions with an AGENTS.md file, or replace its role prompt entirely with --prompt-file.
  • Lifecycle Hooks — run your own commands at key points in the agent lifecycle: enforce guardrails, inject context, trigger local workflows.

Teach it new abilities​

  • Custom Tools — write Python functions in .adal/tools.py and the agent can call them like built-in tools.
  • Skills & Plugins — install reusable domain expertise from community marketplaces (compatible with Claude Code skills), or package your own for your team.

Choose your models​

  • Bring Your Own API Key — use your own provider keys, optionally pointed at your own gateway or self-hosted endpoint.
  • ChatGPT Subscription — connect a ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription to use Codex models without an API key.
  • Local Models — run open-source models with Ollama, fully offline.

Combining with integrations​

Customization composes with the integration surfaces: a headless run in CI uses the same custom tools and AGENTS.md as your interactive session, and a Cloud Agent wraps a system prompt plus custom tools into a reusable, shareable configuration — see Cloud Agents.