Julie Plugin for Claude Code (and Codex CLI, OpenCode)

A Claude Code plugin that installs Julie, a Rust-based code intelligence MCP server. Julie gives AI coding agents LSP-quality search, navigation, and refactoring across 34 programming languages.

This package also ships manual install paths for the Codex CLI and OpenCode — see Codex CLI install and OpenCode install below.

For full documentation on Julie's tools, capabilities, and supported languages, see the Julie repository.

Recommended Prerequisite

Install uv so Julie can auto-provision Python 3.12 and GPU-accelerated embeddings. You do not need to install Python yourself. If uv is missing or embeddings cannot start, Julie still provides keyword search and code navigation; embedding-backed features are disabled until the sidecar is available.

# macOS
brew install uv

# Windows (PowerShell)
winget install --id=astral-sh.uv -e

# Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Optional: Web Research

To enable the /web-research skill for fetching and indexing web content, install browser39:

# Download the latest release for your platform from:
# https://github.com/alejandroqh/browser39/releases

This is optional. All other Julie features work without browser39.

Installation

As a Claude Code Plugin (Recommended)

# Add the Julie plugin repository as a marketplace
/plugin marketplace add anortham/julie-plugin

# Install the plugin (user scope, available across all projects)
/plugin install julie@julie-plugin

You can also scope the installation to a specific project:

# Project scope (shared with team via version control)
/plugin install julie@julie-plugin --scope project

From a Local Clone

git clone https://github.com/anortham/julie-plugin.git

# Install as a plugin
claude plugin install /path/to/julie-plugin

# Or load from local directory (useful for development)
claude --plugin-dir /path/to/julie-plugin

What the Plugin Provides

• MCP server with 10+ code intelligence tools (fast_search, get_symbols, deep_dive, fast_refs, call_path, get_context, blast_radius, rename_symbol, manage_workspace, edit_file, rewrite_symbol)
• 4 skills (/editing, /explore-area, /impact-analysis, /web-research)

The plugin intentionally does not install behavioral hooks. Julie's MCP tools and skills are the durable integration surface; hook-based coaching created too much client-specific configuration drift.

On first launch, Julie extracts a pre-built native binary, prepares the embedding sidecar when uv is available, detects your GPU, and indexes your codebase. Subsequent sessions load the cached index instantly with incremental updates for changed files.

Codex CLI install

The plugin ships an installer that wires Julie's skills into the Codex CLI. It does not touch any config.toml; it prints the exact MCP registration command for your checkout after install.

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+, Codex CLI installed.

Install:

# From a julie-plugin checkout (or anywhere — the script resolves paths from its own location)
node bin/install-codex.cjs

This is idempotent and adds:

• Skills — symlinks skills/<name>/ to ~/.codex/skills/julie-<name>/ for all 4 skills

During install and uninstall it also removes legacy Julie hook entries and the old <!-- julie-precedence start/end --> AGENTS block if they exist.

Register the MCP server in Codex (one-time, you do this manually):

User-scope:

codex mcp add julie -- node /absolute/path/to/julie-plugin/hooks/run.cjs

Codex CLI and Codex Desktop do not send MCP roots, so Julie uses the process cwd/startup hint. If a desktop app starts Julie from the wrong directory, set JULIE_WORKSPACE in that app's MCP config or launch from the repo root:

[mcp_servers.julie]
command = "node"
args = ["/absolute/path/to/julie-plugin/hooks/run.cjs"]
env = { "JULIE_WORKSPACE" = "/absolute/path/to/your/project" }

Uninstall:

node bin/install-codex.cjs --uninstall

Removes the Julie skill symlinks and any legacy Julie hook/AGENTS artifacts; leaves your other Codex configuration intact.

OpenCode install

The plugin ships a parallel installer that wires Julie's skills into OpenCode. It does not touch opencode.json; it prints a ready-to-copy MCP block after install.

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+, OpenCode installed.

Install:

node bin/install-opencode.cjs

This is idempotent and adds, all under ~/.config/opencode/:

• Skills — symlinks skills/<name>/ to skills/julie-<name>/ for all 4 skills (auto-discovered by OpenCode)

During install and uninstall it also removes the legacy plugins/julie-precedence.js module and old <!-- julie-precedence start/end --> AGENTS block if they exist.

Register the MCP server in OpenCode (one-time, you do this manually):

Add to ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json (global) or <repo>/opencode.json (project):

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "mcp": {
      "julie": {
        "type": "local",
        "command": ["node", "/absolute/path/to/julie-plugin/hooks/run.cjs"],
        "enabled": true,
        "environment": {
          "JULIE_WORKSPACE": "/absolute/path/to/your/project"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: OpenCode expects command as an array and the env key is environment (not env). JULIE_WORKSPACE is optional when OpenCode starts from the repo root; set it when OpenCode launches the server from an unreliable cwd.

Uninstall:

node bin/install-opencode.cjs --uninstall

Removes the Julie skill symlinks and any legacy Julie plugin/AGENTS artifacts; leaves your other OpenCode configuration intact.

Supported Platforms

Platform	Architecture
macOS	Apple Silicon (ARM64), Intel (x86_64)
Linux	x86_64
Windows	x86_64

Project Structure

This repo packages pre-built binaries and plugin metadata. Julie's source code lives at anortham/julie.

.claude-plugin/        Plugin manifest and marketplace metadata
  plugin.json          MCP server definition (command: node hooks/run.cjs)
  marketplace.json     Registry entry for /plugin marketplace
bin/
  archives/            Compressed platform binaries (committed to git)
  install-codex.cjs    Idempotent installer for Codex CLI skills; prunes legacy hooks
  install-opencode.cjs Idempotent installer for OpenCode skills; prunes legacy hooks
hooks/
  run.cjs              Node.js launcher: platform detection, extraction, and exec
  hooks.json           Empty hook registration; behavior hooks are intentionally not shipped
skills/                4 skill directories synced from anortham/julie via `cargo xtask sync-plugin`
package.json           Plugin identity and version

Extracted binaries (bin/aarch64-apple-darwin/, bin/x86_64-*/) are gitignored. Only the archives in bin/archives/ are tracked. run.cjs extracts them on first launch and re-extracts when the archive is newer (i.e., after a plugin update).

More Information

• Julie source repo -- full source, documentation, and development
• Architecture docs -- detailed design
• Search flow -- how search works

License

MIT. See LICENSE.