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Version: 1.0.10

Agent integration

The graph is most useful when your AI assistant reaches for it automatically. There are four integration surfaces, all local: the MCP server, skill-file installers, git hooks, and an editor-side guard.

MCP server​

astria mcp [--graph .]

Runs the MCP stdio server — ten tools for querying and assessing the graph from any MCP-capable agent. The full tool list, arguments, and example calls are in the MCP tools reference. Add it to your agent's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "astria": { "command": "astria", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

Skill files (install)​

astria install [--platform claude] [--all]
astria uninstall [--platform claude] [--all]

Supported platforms: claude, codex, gemini, cursor, copilot, aider, opencode, kiro, trae, zcode, vscode, windsurf, cline, roo, amp, pi. --all installs (or removes) every platform in one run — multi-tool users don't need to know the flag per tool.

install writes the platform's skill files and injects an always-on ## astria instruction block into AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md — telling agents to query the graph before grepping and to run update after edits. The instruction block names both access paths: MCP tools when the astria server is connected, or the astria CLI from any agent.

Most platforms get the astria MCP server registered automatically. Project-scoped JSON configs: zcode (.zcode/config.json), claude (.mcp.json — Claude Code asks you to approve it once), cursor (.cursor/mcp.json), gemini (.gemini/settings.json), vscode (.vscode/mcp.json — native workspace MCP, what Copilot inside VS Code uses), trae (.trae/mcp.json), windsurf (.windsurf/mcp.json), kiro (.kiro/settings/mcp.json — Kiro's documented workspace-scope config), and opencode (.opencode/opencode.json; the OpenCode freshness plugin drops into the auto-discovered .opencode/plugins/). The Copilot coding agent has no committed MCP config file — repository-level MCP for it is JSON pasted into the repository's Settings on github.com, so install --platform copilot writes the skill and instructions only. pi installs an auto-discovered extension (~/.pi/agent/extensions/astria.mjs) that registers the graph as native pi tools (astria_query, astria_map, astria_explain, astria_path, astria_affected) — pi's own philosophy is registered CLI-backed tools over MCP definitions, which also costs far less context — plus graph-refresh after write/edit and an /astria guidance command. Users of the pi-mcp-adapter extension additionally get the standard .mcp.json tools it reads. Codex defines MCP servers in its user-global ~/.codex/config.toml, so install --platform codex appends a managed [mcp_servers.astria] table there — never touching a hand-written one. The ten tools (repo_map, query_graph, explain, get_neighbors, shortest_path, affected, god_nodes, list_communities, graph_stats, health) then appear natively in every session for that project. All steps are idempotent and merge-safe (existing servers and unrelated config keys are preserved); uninstall removes them, and configs written at a since-corrected path by earlier builds are migrated away rather than duplicated.

Existing installs upgrade in place: install recognizes its own previously generated instruction blocks and refreshes them to the current wording; hand-customized pre-1.0 ## graphify sections are detected and left untouched.

Install just the skill (skills.sh)​

npx skills add Nodesify/astria

The repo's canonical skill - skills/astria/SKILL.md - is indexed on skills.sh, so any coding agent can pick it up without astria being installed. The skill is self-contained: on first use it checks for the CLI (astria --version); if it is missing but .astria/ exists, it answers from the exported report and wiki as plain files; if there is no graph either, it offers the npm install -g @nodesify/astria install before doing any graph work - it never installs unprompted. astria install (below) remains the richer path for CLI users since it also wires MCP configs, hooks, and AGENTS.md blocks per platform.

Git hooks​

astria hook install|uninstall|status

Keeps the graph fresh automatically on commit, so agents always see an up-to-date structure without anyone remembering to run update. Hook runs are deliberately quiet and cheap: each commit calls update . --quiet --if-stale 10, which prints nothing, skips the token benchmark, and does nothing at all when the graph was published less than 10 minutes ago (so a burst of commits rebuilds once, not per commit). Errors never break a commit.

Who should install them: anyone whose AI assistant queries this repo's graph — that's the workflow where staleness silently produces wrong answers. Casual CLI users can skip them without losing anything; status still flags a stale graph, and a deliberate astria update . refreshes on demand. Hooks are per-machine and per-checkout (only runs on machines where you ran astria hook install), and uninstall removes them cleanly.

Editor guard (hook-guard)​

astria hook-guard <mode>    # search | read | gemini

The editor-side companion to git hooks: a PreToolUse hook installed into .claude/settings.json that nudges agents toward query before raw searches. Modes:

  • search — intercepts grep-style calls (the Grep tool, or grep/rg/ag/git grep in Bash) and injects a mandatory nudge to check the graph first
  • read — additionally watches source-file reads: when a file is newer than the graph build, it warns that the graph is stale and to run update before trusting answers
  • gemini — compatibility mode for Gemini CLI, whose BeforeTool hook only understands allow decisions — there the guard installs but cannot nudge

Strict mode (opt-in, via --strict or ASTRIA_HOOK_STRICT=1) additionally denies one un-indexed read per session until the agent orients with a graph query (query/explain/path); after that, reads proceed uninterrupted for ASTRIA_HOOK_STRICT_TTL seconds (default 1800 — 30 minutes). The guard always fails open: any error means the tool call proceeds untouched. See Environment variables.

The intended loop​

  1. install once per repo — agents learn the graph exists.
  2. Agents query/explain/affected instead of grepping (see MCP tools reference).
  3. Git hooks (or watch) keep the graph fresh after edits.
  4. Repeated queries compound into learned edges — see Memory and learning.