Install the Plugin

Plugin

The plugin runs inside your coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex CLI). It invokes archcore from your PATH — so install the CLI first (see the CLI install guide: one curl line on macOS/Linux, one PowerShell line on Windows), then install the plugin.

For Cursor, you additionally register MCP yourself — see the Cursor tab below.

Install the plugin

Claude Code

From your shell:

claude plugin marketplace add archcore-ai/plugin
claude plugin install archcore@archcore-plugins

Or, from within Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add archcore-ai/plugin
/plugin install archcore@archcore-plugins

Open your project and run /archcore:help — the plugin spawns archcore mcp from your PATH, and initializes .archcore/ on the first MCP call if missing.

If archcore isn’t on PATH, the session-start hook prints install instructions and links to the CLI install guide.

Cursor

Requires Cursor 2.5+. Archcore isn’t on the official Cursor Marketplace yet, so install from GitHub via the Plugins panel:

1. Open Cursor → Plugins
2. Paste https://github.com/archcore-ai/plugin into the Search or paste link field
3. Click Add Plugin

Cursor reads the repo’s marketplace.json and installs the plugin. For team rollouts, paste the same URL under Dashboard → Settings → Plugins → Team Marketplaces → Import.

Cursor does not auto-register plugin MCP, so register archcore yourself. Copy docs/cursor.mcp.example.json (shipped in the plugin’s docs/ directory) into ~/.cursor/mcp.json (user-scoped) or .cursor/mcp.json (project-scoped):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "archcore": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "archcore",
      "args": ["mcp", "--project", "${workspaceFolder}"]
    }
  }
}

Keep the --project ${workspaceFolder} argument. It scopes MCP to the active project; without it, a single registration would read one project’s .archcore/ across every Cursor window.

Cursor support is implemented but has a slightly different hooks API — see Supported AI agents.

Codex CLI

Requires Codex 0.117.0+. Install from the marketplace:

codex plugin marketplace add archcore-ai/plugin

MCP is registered automatically — the plugin’s manifest references .codex.mcp.json, which runs archcore mcp from your PATH. No env-var substitution and no plugin-relative paths.

Enable hooks (recommended). Codex hooks are gated by an under-development feature flag (default off):

codex features enable plugin_hooks

Without this flag, skills, MCP tools, and agents work normally, but the validation, cascade, precision, and pre-edit context-injection hooks won’t fire.

Codex CLI surfaces skills as 7 thin commands/<name>.md wrappers. After install, run /archcore:help to list them.

Local development (any host)

Clone the plugin repo:

git clone https://github.com/archcore-ai/plugin

Claude Code — load the cloned directory for the session:

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/archcore-plugin

Cursor — Cursor has no --plugin-dir flag. Symlink the repo into Cursor’s local plugins directory and reload the window:

ln -s /path/to/archcore-plugin ~/.cursor/plugins/local/archcore
# then in Cursor: Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P → "Developer: Reload Window"

Codex CLI — point the marketplace at a local path:

codex plugin marketplace add /path/to/archcore-plugin

Don’t forget codex features enable plugin_hooks if you want hooks active.

All three manifests (.claude-plugin/plugin.json, .cursor-plugin/plugin.json, .codex-plugin/plugin.json) sit at the repo root.

Use local mode when hacking on skills or hooks. The plugin calls archcore from PATH — to test against a locally-built CLI binary, put it ahead of the installed one on PATH (e.g. export PATH="$(pwd)/cli/bin:$PATH").

Offline / pinned CLI

The plugin always runs whichever archcore is on your shell’s PATH. For offline or air-gapped environments, install the CLI via any supported method (curl, PowerShell, build from source) — see the CLI install guide — and ensure it’s on PATH before launching your coding agent.

To pin a specific binary, install it to a directory you control and put that directory first on PATH.

Plugin environment variables

Variable	Effect
ARCHCORE_DISABLE_INJECTION	=1 turns off the pre-edit context injection hook globally.

Verify

1. Restart your coding agent so the session-start hook can run.

2. In a fresh conversation, run:

   /archcore:help

   You should see a list of available skills and intent commands.

3. Try an intent command on a real decision:

   /archcore:decide use PostgreSQL as the primary database

   The agent picks the right document type (an ADR), creates a draft in .archcore/ via MCP — not via direct file writes — and offers a rule + guide follow-up.

If /archcore:* commands don’t appear, check Troubleshooting.

Uninstall

Claude Code:

/plugin uninstall archcore@archcore-plugins

Cursor: remove Archcore from plugin settings, and remove the archcore entry from your Cursor MCP config.

Codex CLI:

codex plugin uninstall archcore

The archcore CLI is a separate install — uninstall via the same script that installed it, if desired.

Next steps

• Supported AI agents — confirm your host supports the features you need.
• All 7 commands — outcome, examples, and flags for each.