ForgeDock

What ForgeDock Does

ForgeDock runs the full issue lifecycle inside Claude Code — investigate, architect, build, quality-gate, review, and merge — autonomously. You open an issue, run /work-on #42, and click merge. Every stage writes structured context back to GitHub, so the next agent starts smart, not blind.

You:        /work-on #42
ForgeDock:  Investigate → Architect → Build → Quality Gate → Review → open PR
You:        click merge

No new runtime, no separate process, no cloud service — just prompt-engineered command specs that run inside the Claude Code you already use.

What You Get

Cost note: ForgeDock itself is free and open-source. It orchestrates Claude Code sessions, so you pay your normal Anthropic API usage. A typical /work-on run on a straightforward bug uses roughly the same tokens as a 15–20 minute manual Claude Code session.

How It Works

Issue → Investigate → Architect → Build → Quality Gate → Review → Merge
              ↓            ↓         ↓          ↓            ↓
        writes to     reads from  reads from  reads from   writes to
         GitHub        GitHub      GitHub      GitHub       GitHub

Each stage writes a structured annotation (<!-- FORGE:INVESTIGATOR -->, <!-- FORGE:CONTRACT -->, etc.) to the GitHub issue or PR. Each downstream stage reads what came before. The gh CLI is the query interface.

Labels track workflow state (workflow:investigating, workflow:building, workflow:in-review, workflow:merged). The pipeline resumes from whatever state GitHub says it's in — restart-safe by design.

Install

Requirements: Node.js 18+, Claude Code, GitHub CLI (gh), yq (YAML parser used by pipeline commands to read forge.yaml), and Playwright MCP (browser automation for /qa-sweep and visual testing commands)

Playwright MCP is a guaranteed ForgeDock dependency for browser automation commands. Register it in Claude Code after installing ForgeDock:

claude mcp add playwright npx @playwright/mcp@latest

Verify with npx forgedock doctor — Check 9 confirms Playwright MCP is registered.

# Install pipeline commands
npx forgedock

# Generate config for your repo
npx forgedock init

# Verify everything is wired up correctly
npx forgedock doctor

This symlinks 25+ pipeline commands into ~/.claude/commands/ and generates a forge.yaml config in your project root. npx forgedock doctor runs an installation health check — command symlinks, forge.yaml, required tools (gh, yq, Claude Code), GitHub workflow labels, and Playwright MCP — printing a clear pass/fail/warn line with a fix hint for each, and exiting non-zero if anything is broken. Run it any time your setup feels off. That's it — open Claude Code and run /work-on #42.

Try it risk-free: Follow the 5-minute Getting Started walkthrough to install, configure, and run your first pipeline end-to-end. New to the commands? Start with the Command Reference for a guided tour of what each one does.

Claude Code Plugin Marketplace (v2.1.143+):

/plugin marketplace add RapierCraftStudios/ForgeDock
/plugin install forgedock@forgedock

CLI commands:

npx forgedock update       # Pull latest commands
npx forgedock uninstall    # Remove all ForgeDock commands from ~/.claude/commands/
npx forgedock help         # Show all available commands

Standalone runner (run pipelines outside Claude Code — CI/CD, headless batch):

# Preview the assembled prompt + tool plan (no API key needed)
npx forgedock run work-on 42 --dry-run

# Execute headlessly via the Anthropic API directly
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
npm install @anthropic-ai/sdk        # optional dependency — only needed for live runs
npx forgedock run work-on 42

forgedock run loads the same commands/*.md specs and drives an Anthropic tool-use loop directly, so the pipeline no longer depends on the Claude Code agent loop. Claude Code remains the recommended interactive experience; the runner adds CI/CD and non-Claude-Code paths. Flags: --dry-run, --model <id>, --max-iterations <n>.

AI-powered setup (inside Claude Code):

/forgedock-init            # Guided config walkthrough — scans your repo, queries GitHub, auto-fills forge.yaml

Here's what a real run looks like on issue #619 — a performance bug where command specs were burning ~200K tokens in context:

FORGE:INVESTIGATOR  →  CONFIRMED. All 27 command spec files (848KB) load into
                        context at session start via symlinks. ~200K tokens wasted.

FORGE:CONTRACT      →  Replace symlink-based install with stub-file pattern.
                        Installer parses frontmatter, writes minimal stubs.

FORGE:CONTEXT       →  Issue #577: install() had overly broad catch{} — fixed to
                        check err.code === 'ENOENT'. Issue #587: Windows writes
                        regular files, not symlinks — keep both paths working.

FORGE:ARCHITECT     →  3 new functions in bin/forgedock.mjs: parseFrontmatter(),
                        generateStubContent(), updated install() flow.

FORGE:BUILDER       →  Branch feat/stub-install-pattern-619, 1 file changed.

FORGE:REVIEW        →  Auto-merged to staging.

FORGE:TRAJECTORY    →  Full audit trail recorded.

The context phase surfaced two historical bugs (#577, #587) in the same module — preventing the builder from repeating known mistakes. View the full issue →

Where to Start

ForgeDock installs 25+ commands, but you only need three to start. They cover the entire issue-to-merge loop: