Atlas

Atlas sets how a repository is worked on. It is one Claude Code plugin with:

1. The lead, atlas:lead: the talk rules, the routing and the command list. It loads on its own in each session of a repo with atlas.yaml. Nobody has to call it.
2. The rulebook, atlas:sdlc-task: start, pause, resume, lock and finish one piece of work. Three more skills: repo-skills adds a procedure the right way, learnings turns a miss into one fix, and feedback files an issue. fresh-agent-test ends onboarding with three tasks that a fresh agent does from the repo's files alone.
3. Nine crews: a code reader, a capability reader, three design reviewers (architect, product, security), a page renderer, a reviewer of test words, and the verifier that proves a pull request. The ninth is the judge of the fresh-agent test.
4. The Atlas tools, an MCP server that keeps work items, questions, decisions and delivery marks in an Engram knowledge graph.
5. The atlas command: check a repository's Atlas files, write the check into it, measure a page against the STE limits, and install or upgrade Atlas itself.
6. The repo check, a file each repository copies so that its CI can check its instruction files with no Atlas install.

Install

Run this once, in a terminal:

npx @arjunkhera/atlas install

It shows what it will change, and asks first. At the end it prints two commands that put your Engram address and key in the file ~/.config/atlas/engram-connection. Only you can read that file. The key is not a plugin setting, because Claude Code gives plugin settings to the plugin's hooks.

Check it with atlas doctor. Upgrade with atlas upgrade.

The lead hook

Atlas ships one hook, hooks/lead.sh. At the start of a session it looks for atlas.yaml in the session folder, or in a folder one level down. If it finds one, it puts the lead text into the session. If not, it does nothing.

1. It uses shell builtins only. It starts no program and makes no network call.
2. It prints no text that a repo controls.
3. It prints nothing when the repo's CLAUDE.md already imports the lead.
4. ATLAS_HOOKS=off turns it off.
5. The package test pins its bytes and refuses any other hook.

Requirements

Node 22 or later, Claude Code, and gh for the tools that read GitHub.