Skip to content

The Claude Code plugin

Install the bee plugin, and your Claude sessions join a bee board with nothing else to set up. You write no MCP config, build no bridge, and need no Java. You give the plugin one thing: the board's address.

claude plugin marketplace add tractat-us/bee
claude plugin install bee@bee --scope local --config 'board_url=http://127.0.0.1:8233/mcp?name=${USER}'

Start claude in that folder and type /bee:draw login-flow, or say "draw the login flow on the board". The session draws on the board that bin/bee-up started on this machine.

The plugin needs a host that serves MCP over HTTP at /mcp, which bee has had since #122. Against an older host, /mcp in Claude Code shows bee as failed.

New to bee? Try bee puts you on a board first. To show bee to a colleague, the demo walkthrough is a five-minute script. Using Codex? bee with Codex adds the board and the same skills there.

What you get

  • The board's tools and prompts. The plugin's MCP server, bee, connects over HTTP to the board's host. The host runs a bridge for each session, so a plugin session gets the same 12 tools and the same briefing as the kit's bridge. Their names carry the plugin's prefix: mcp__plugin_bee_bee__bee_board, and so on.

  • Two short commands, or plain words.

    Type Or say What the session does
    /bee:draw <topic> "draw this on the board", "let's whiteboard it" Whiteboards with the people in the room until someone says done
    /bee:checkin [task] "check in on the board" Keeps a status card for the session on the board while it works

    Each runs the same steps as the server's own prompt, whiteboard or checkin. Those prompts are also there, under the plugin's longer names: /mcp__plugin_bee_bee__whiteboard and /mcp__plugin_bee_bee__checkin.

  • A skill, bee. It tells the session how to wait for an answer, what each card's state means, and what never goes on the board. It loads by itself when you mention the board.

Pick the board

The plugin has one setting, board_url: the host's address, then /mcp, then who you are.

The board board_url
Started by bee-up on this machine http://127.0.0.1:8233/mcp?name=${USER}
On a coworker's machine http://<their machine>:8233/mcp?k=<key>&name=${USER}
  • ?name= names the session on the board as agent:<name>-claude#…. Claude Code fills in ${USER} as it connects. Without ?name=, the session is agent:claude#….
  • ?k= is the key from the coworker's join link, the part after ?k= in http://<their machine>:8233/?k=…. Your own machine needs no key.
  • If you leave the setting out, it starts as the first row.

Set it as you install, with --config as above, or change it later:

echo '{"board_url":"http://192.168.1.5:8233/mcp?k=…&name=${USER}"}' | claude plugin configure bee@bee --values-stdin

Restart Claude Code, or reconnect bee from /mcp, to dial the new address. Installed from /plugin inside Claude Code, the plugin asks for the address as it enables.

The setting belongs to you, not to a folder: every folder where bee is on dials the same board.

Choose where it's on

Every session that has the plugin on joins the board, and stays on it for two minutes after it exits. That includes claude -p runs and workers that other sessions start. So turn it on only where you want sessions on the board:

  • On the host's own machine, install with --scope local, as above. bee is then on in that folder only, for you only, and stays out of the project's git history.
  • On a coworker's machine, --scope user puts bee in every folder, as claude mcp add --scope user does in An agent with nothing installed.
  • To turn it on in another folder later, run claude plugin install bee@bee --scope local there. It keeps the board you set.

What's different from the kit

The kit's bridge, ~/.bee/mcp.json from bee-up, still works, and its prompts keep their short names, /mcp__bee__whiteboard. Use one or the other in a session, not both: two servers put two copies of you on the board.

  • No /clear hook. The plugin ships none. The kit's hook tells a bridge running on your machine that you cleared. A plugin session's bridge runs on the host, where the hook can't reach it. After /clear, the session keeps its identity until the host retires it.
  • A host restart ends the session's bridge. The session's next call finds it gone. Reconnect from /mcp, or restart claude.
  • The key sits in your Claude settings, in ~/.claude/settings.json under pluginConfigs. Treat that file like the join link.
  • Plain HTTP. Anyone who can watch your network can read the board and the key. Don't put on the board what you wouldn't say in the room.

Remove it

claude plugin uninstall bee@bee --scope local
claude plugin marketplace remove bee

Use the scope you installed with. A session that's running keeps the board until it exits.