In a platform project, an AI agent such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex follows the rules from the agent plugin and talks to MainPath through MCP. Always open it in the parent project folder ~/Documents/MainPath/<organization>/<project>/ so that it sees all repositories.
Install the agent plugin
Skills, rules, and MCP ship inside the mp CLI, not as an npm package. The only prerequisite is the CLI:
curl -fsSL https://www.application-platform.com/install.sh | sh
mp agent install
mp login
On Windows, in PowerShell: irm https://www.application-platform.com/install.ps1 | iex. mp login, mp doctor, and a CLI update run agent install as well. The CLI places the plugin with Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex and writes the absolute path to mp into the user MCP file. Afterwards you reload the editor or restart the agent.
The plugin brings the skills setup-and-login, create-project, import-existing-project, run-local, git-and-pipelines, and report-blocker, slash commands such as /create-project, and the MCP server application-platform via mp mcp serve. Details are in CLI and agent plugin.
What you can ask the agent
- “Import this project into my MainPath account.” The agent detects the stack, creates the project, and pushes your code, see Bring in an existing project.
- “Create a new MainPath project with a Next.js app and a NestJS backend and clone it.” The agent creates the project from a template, waits for the setup, and clones it.
- “Start the backend locally.” The agent runs
mp run-localin the backend repository.
Which rules the agent follows
The plugin requires starting applications with mp run-local, never editing .gitlab-ci.yml and env/*.generated.env by hand, writing your own values to env/*.custom.env, never committing or printing secrets, working in the application repository instead of local-configuration, taking runtimes from .tool-versions, and storing backend uploads under ./upload.
After finishing the work, the agent commits and pushes on main or a feature branch (feat/…, fix/…, chore/…) and waits with platform_pipelines_wait for the pipeline of that commit.
Add your own rules
Project-specific rules, such as preferred libraries, go in an AGENTS.md in the application repository, not in the local-configuration MainPath generates. See Your own rules for AI agents.
Limits
The MCP server runs locally through the mp CLI, so cloud agents cannot use it; if the agent reports that you are not signed in, type mp login. If creating or importing fails, the agent does not work around the error with its own Git commands. If it is blocked by the platform, it calls platform_agent_report.
You save and publish the agent’s changes.