Orchestra Agent Tools

Type /orchestra:onboard in Claude Code — or the matching onboarding command in your agent — and it walks your LLM app from captured traces to a measured, cheaper — often local — model, with evidence you can trust.

Works with Claude Code · Cursor · Codex · Devin (OpenCode and Hermes Agent: deprecated)

---

Orchestra (formerly Understudy) maintains this public, MIT-licensed skill library plus a thin CLI. It gives your coding agent the playbooks to evaluate an AI workload locally, optimize it, and route it to a better-value model — local-first, with no uploads, no provider calls, and nothing spent by default. The CLI and plugin are orchestra (understudy still works as a CLI alias, and rerunning the installer replaces the old understudy plugin).

Get started (30 seconds)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/understudylabs/orchestra-agent-tools/main/install.sh | bash

You need macOS or Linux (on Windows, use WSL) and Node.js 22.19 or newer. The installer checks both before it changes anything and tells you the fix for your machine; with Homebrew it offers to install Node for you. Run orchestra doctor any time to see what Orchestra can find. The installer then installs the CLI and hands over to orchestra init, a short guided setup:

1. What to set up: Orchestra account + coding-agent plugin (recommended), the same plus the local model lab (Apple Silicon: the Orchestra 2B model, about 3.6 GB, downloads in the background; its MLX runtime needs uv, installed with Homebrew only if you say yes), choose agents, or just the CLI.
2. A checklist that ticks off the CLI, your sign-in (we email a one-time code you type right there; an existing sign-in is kept) and the plugin for every coding agent it finds: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Devin.
3. Where do you want to start? Claude Code (or the Codex CLI) opens here with Orchestra ready. For the Claude desktop app, ChatGPT (Codex) or Cursor, the prompt is copied and the app is opened; paste it into a new chat. Run orchestra start to get back to this screen any time.

Anything that needs your attention is listed once, at the end.

Codex Desktop does not require the Codex CLI for plugin setup. Without a codex executable, the installer adds Orchestra to your personal plugin marketplace, preserving other entries. Restart Codex Desktop or ChatGPT, open Plugins, select your personal marketplace, and install Orchestra; then start a new chat. This adds skills, not gateway routing. The orchestra codex gateway launcher still requires the Codex CLI. To remove the Desktop plugin, uninstall it in Plugins and remove only its orchestra entry from ~/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json.

The CLI comes from the published npm package @orchestraai/agent-tools. If npm has no release yet (or with --from-source), the installer builds it from the GitHub main branch instead.

The default install uses the smaller Vercel conversation backend. The optional Pi backend can be added later without reinstalling:

npm install -g @earendil-works/[email protected] @earendil-works/[email protected]

Then, in Claude Code:

/reload-plugins
/orchestra:onboard

That's it. Onboarding profiles your machine, asks what you're working on, and points the plugin at your real workload. Local work needs no account. On other agents the activation command differs slightly — see Pick your platform.

Unless you pick the local model lab, the installer does not download model weights or set up MLX, and it never makes frontier calls or spends money.

Non-interactive installs use option 1 without prompting (sign in later with orchestra login); add --local-models for the lab on Apple Silicon or --skip-login to skip the sign-in prompt:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/understudylabs/orchestra-agent-tools/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --yes

Override the agent prompt with --agents auto|all|claude-code|cursor|codex|opencode|hermes|devin|none.

The installer is resumable. It writes step markers under ~/.understudy/agent-tools/install-state; after a failed run:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/understudylabs/orchestra-agent-tools/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --resume

Or jump directly to a step:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/understudylabs/orchestra-agent-tools/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --from-step 2

Developer install from a clone:

npm install
npm run build
node dist/bin.js --help

Update Orchestra Agent Tools

Rerun the same installer. It installs the newest CLI release and refreshes the selected agent adapters and skills; your sign-in is kept:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/understudylabs/orchestra-agent-tools/main/install.sh | bash

The install-agent-adapter skill repairs or refreshes how an agent discovers the existing skills. It does not update the underlying checkout by itself. Platforms may still require a plugin reload, window reload, restart, or new session after an update.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗