---

name: "package-management" description: "Guides Argos Translate package index, argospm, local .argosmodel installation, package inspection, and model-package troubleshooting workflows." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: MIT

Package Management

Use this sub-skill when the user needs to find, install, inspect, list, remove, or troubleshoot Argos Translate language packages.

Scope

This sub-skill owns:

• argospm update, search, install, list, and remove.
• Python installation of local .argosmodel archives with package.install_from_path().
• Package index behavior and package naming such as translate-en_es.
• Installed package directories and package cache behavior.
• .argosmodel archive validation and package metadata interpretation.
• Package-specific troubleshooting before translation.

Route actual text translation, translation-object selection, sentence-boundary behavior during translation, and argos-translate runtime failures to ../translation/.

Read these first

• references/workflows.md — package index, local archive, and installed-package workflows.
• references/troubleshooting.md — package-specific failure modes and recovery.
• ../../references/package-format.md — .argosmodel archive and metadata format.
• ../../references/cli-reference.md — exact argospm commands.
• ../../references/configuration.md — package index URL and package directory settings.
• ../../references/api-reference.md — Python APIs for package installation and discovery.
• scripts/check_argosmodel.py — safe local archive validator.

Minimal decision flow

1. If the user already has a local .argosmodel, validate it first:

   python sub-skills/package-management/scripts/check_argosmodel.py translate-en_es.argosmodel
   

2. If using remote packages, update and search the index:

   argospm update
   argospm search -f en -t es
   

3. Install the package by index name or local archive path:

   argospm install translate-en_es
   

   or:

   from pathlib import Path
   from argostranslate import package
   package.install_from_path(Path("translate-en_es.argosmodel"))
   

4. Verify discovery:

   argospm list
   

5. Switch back to ../translation/ to run a tiny translation.

Package names and language pairs

argospm names combine package type and language codes. For direct translation packages, expect names like:

translate-en_es
translate-de_en
translate-tr_en

argospm install translate installs all packages and can be very large. Do not run it unless the user explicitly wants all language packages and has enough disk/network budget.

Local archive workflow

Use local archives when network access is unavailable, a package link fails, or the user supplies a downloaded .argosmodel.

• Validate with sub-skills/package-management/scripts/check_argosmodel.py.
• Install with package.install_from_path().
• Confirm with argospm list or package.get_installed_packages().
• Clear or restart translation caches before testing in an already-running Python process.

Safety boundaries

• Installing packages writes extracted model files into the configured package directory.
• Removing packages deletes installed package directories.
• scripts/uninstall.sh from the source repository was not bundled because it removes cache/share directories and uninstalls the package; do destructive cleanup only after explicit user approval.
• Remote downloads and installing every language package can consume significant bandwidth and storage.

Native verification anchors

The source repository's safe package unit-test anchor is tests/test_package.py, especially metadata loading and installed package object behavior. Remote index/download workflows are network-dependent and should be tested separately only when the user authorizes network use.