Shipwright Harness

Getting Started

This guide takes you from zero to a running Shipwright Harness setup — including the local metrics dashboard — in a single Claude Code prompt. No cloud account or secrets needed.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have these tools installed before you begin:

  • Claude Code — the AI coding assistant this plugin runs inside
  • git — to clone the repository
  • Bun — the JavaScript runtime used by all Shipwright services
  • go-task (task) — the task runner used for local dev commands

The one-prompt setup

Paste this into Claude Code and it will handle the rest:

Set up Shipwright Harness locally and open the metrics dashboard.
1. In a terminal, run: git clone https://github.com/app-vitals/shipwright.git && cd shipwright && ./scripts/quickstart.sh
2. Inside this Claude Code session, install the plugin: /plugin install shipwright@app-vitals/shipwright
3. Open the dashboard in your browser: http://localhost:3460/dashboard

That’s it. Claude Code will run the commands, install the plugin, and let you know when the dashboard is ready.

What the setup does

When you run the one-prompt setup, three things happen in sequence:

  1. Clone and quickstart — scripts/quickstart.sh checks your prerequisites, runs task setup (installs all workspace dependencies), then starts the dev server with task dev. The metrics dashboard launches at http://localhost:3460/dashboard in offline fixtures mode — no secrets required.

  2. Plugin install — /plugin install shipwright@app-vitals/shipwright loads the Shipwright plugin into your Claude Code session. The plugin provides the full delivery-loop commands: /shipwright:plan-session, /shipwright:dev-task, /shipwright:review, and /shipwright:deploy.

  3. Dashboard — the metrics dashboard shows cycle time, first-time-quality, and task throughput. In fixtures mode it loads sample data so you can explore the UI immediately.

Manual setup

If you prefer to run the steps yourself:

git clone https://github.com/app-vitals/shipwright.git
cd shipwright
./scripts/quickstart.sh

The quickstart script runs the following commands internally:

task setup   # install all workspace dependencies
task dev     # start the metrics dashboard at http://localhost:3460/dashboard

Once the dashboard is running, install the plugin inside your Claude Code session:

/plugin install shipwright@app-vitals/shipwright

The dashboard will be available at http://localhost:3460/dashboard. It starts in offline mode (fixtures), so you can explore without configuring any external services.

Next steps

Once you have the local setup running, you can:

  • Point at a real repository — open any repo in Claude Code and use /shipwright:plan-session to generate a task queue from your product spec.
  • Explore the plugin — learn about all the commands, skills, and agents the plugin provides. See The Plugin for the full reference.
  • Deploy to cloud — run Shipwright as an always-on autonomous agent. See Deploying to Cloud for the full container setup.
  • Learn the operator loop — once an agent is live, see Day-to-Day Operations for the quick-start on cron health, PR triage, and HITL escalations.
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