Agents and MCP

A coding agent uses Maru through the same CLI you do. Everything it needs to know comes from the installed version: commands from --help, input schemas from maru tools describe, and task guidance from maru guide. This page covers each piece in detail; Use Maru from your agent explains which ones you need and how they fit together.

The agent skill

npx maruaudio skill install

This installs the maru-agent skill for the coding agents in the current project, using the open Skills CLI; it needs no sign-in. Add --global to install it for your user instead, or --agent <name> to choose an agent. --dry-run prints the Skills CLI command without running it. Without a terminal, the command answers the Skills CLI's prompts itself. You can also run the Skills CLI directly:

npx skills add maru-audio/maru-skill --skill maru-agent

Manage the installed skill with the same command:

npx maruaudio skill status   # installed? where, and for which agents
npx maruaudio skill update   # fetch the latest version
npx maruaudio skill remove   # uninstall (asks first; --yes to skip)

maru doctor also reports whether the skill is installed. Agent skill explains what the skill does and how to use it.

The skill teaches the agent to use the CLI. To give the same agents Maru's MCP servers as well, run npx maruaudio mcp install, described below.

Remote MCP connector

Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client to your Maru account with one URL:

https://maruaudio.com/mcp

The client registers itself, opens Maru in your browser to sign in, and asks you to approve its access; you never paste a password or key. The connector reads the Maru guides, lists your Studio projects and reads their source, searches published community modules and their open source, reports your plug-in builds, lists the Studio templates, and creates Studio projects and sound banks. Generating audio spends credits and needs a separate permission. It cannot edit source or publish. Disconnect it in Settings → Access tokens.

For coding agents, one command adds it as maru:

npx maruaudio mcp install

This configures Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, Gemini CLI or Claude Desktop; Use Maru from your agent lists where each one's entry goes.

MCP overview explains the remote server; Connect your agent has the setup for each client, Workflows has prompts to try, and Tools lists every tool.

Local MCP server

maru mcp

maru mcp runs a Model Context Protocol server on stdio. It serves the same operations as the CLI, with the same input schemas, so any MCP client can call them. Operations that change files, such as builds, exports and source edits, carry write annotations, so a client that honors read-only hints asks before running them. Hosted operations use the credentials from maru login.

Register it with your coding agents as maru-local, next to the hosted connector:

npx maruaudio mcp install --local   # the local server only
npx maruaudio mcp install --both    # the local server and the connector

The entry runs npx -y maruaudio mcp, so it works without a global install. To add it by hand, register it with Claude Code:

claude mcp add maru-local -- maru mcp

or add it to another MCP client's configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "maru-local": {
      "command": "maru",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Without a global install, use npx as the command and ["-y", "maruaudio", "mcp"] as its arguments. The server works on the project in the client's workspace roots, or the directory it was started in.

Guides

maru guide list              # guides, each with the situation it applies to
maru guide read <name...>    # read one or more guides

Guides are short, versioned instructions for specific tasks: authoring a Graph or a Processor, parameters and presets, faces with the UI kit, MIDI modules, resources and builds. They match the version of Maru you installed, so an agent should read them instead of relying on what it remembers.

Operations and schemas

maru tools list                     # every operation
maru tools describe --json          # their JSON input schemas
maru tools call <operation> --input '{"key":"value"}'

Every Maru operation is a CLI command, an MCP tool and a typed call in the maruaudio library at once. maru tools describe prints the schemas an MCP client sees. maru tools call runs an operation by its registry name with JSON input, which suits scripts that already build JSON. Each command also accepts its operation name as an alias, for example maru module_build for maru module build.

A first prompt

Use the maru-agent skill. Run maru doctor, then read the guides that match
this task. Make the delay repeats darker as they fade, using the existing DSP
leaves. Check the result with maru module check and maru module eval, and
summarize the changed files and what you verified.

Working with coding agents describes the collaboration loop.