Client Setup Recipes

Purpose

This guide gives exact copy-paste setup recipes for the main local AI clients used with this framework.

Client setup map

flowchart LR
  A["Build MCP"] --> B["Cursor"]
  A --> C["Claude Code"]
  A --> D["Codex"]

Shared rule

• Open this repository as the workspace root.
• Build first:

npm install
npm run build

Cursor

Config file:

• ~/.cursor/mcp.json

Example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sdd": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/spec-driven-development-template/packages/sdd-mcp/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Validation:

• restart Cursor
• confirm the sdd server is listed
• ask the agent to read sdd://policy/current

Claude Code

Project-scoped config:

• .mcp.json

User-scoped config:

• ~/.claude.json

Project example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sdd": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/spec-driven-development-template/packages/sdd-mcp/dist/index.js"
      ],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Validation:

• open the repository
• confirm Claude can access the sdd server
• ask it to list tools and read the quickstart resource

Codex

Config file:

• ~/.codex/config.toml

Example:

[mcp_servers.sdd]
command = "node"
args = ["/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/spec-driven-development-template/packages/sdd-mcp/dist/index.js"]

Validation:

• restart Codex
• confirm the server is available
• ask it to use sdd_validate or read sdd://docs/quickstart

Recommended first prompt

Use the connected sdd MCP server for this repository.
Create the SDD base first.
Prefer ./www/<project-name> as the recommended default workspace; external target paths are also supported.
Read the policy and quickstart resources before making changes.
Do not implement code before approved spec and consistent plan.