Install CoDesign MCP in your agent

Get Node in place

The plugin needs Node 18 or newer: Claude Code needs it once, because its launcher installs CoDesign with a Node of its own; Codex, Antigravity, Copilot CLI and Cursor start the plugin’s launcher on it every time. The MCP server route (step 04) runs the server with npx and needs Node 22.15 or newer. Check the version first. If Node is missing or older than your route needs, install or upgrade it yourself rather than handing that back to the user. Use whatever the machine already has: nvm, fnm, mise, Homebrew, or the system package manager. Prefer a version manager over sudo. Ask only if the install needs a permission you do not have. On Windows, the Claude Code, Codex and Copilot CLI plugins run natively, no WSL needed. The npx route needs WSL for now, so run its steps inside it: hosts that start npx directly on Windows fail with spawn npx ENOENT.

node --version

nvm install 22 && nvm use 22

Download the server once, and let it finish

Skip this step for the plugin: it installs CoDesign itself, in the background, the first time its server starts. For the MCP server route, the first start of the CoDesign MCP server downloads a large package. It can take several minutes, longer than most clients wait before they give up on a server, and a client that gives up mid-download can leave a broken cache behind. So start it once yourself, before your client does: run the command below and wait until the process stays running and waits for input, then stop it. Allow up to 10 minutes and do not stop it early. If it fails with ENOTEMPTY, delete the folder named in the error (under ~/.npm/_npx/) and run it again.

npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

Plugin route: install the CoDesign plugin

Run your agent’s list command from “Done when” first. If Claude Code lists codesign@anthropic-plugin-directory, that is an older CoDesign from the Anthropic Directory: remove it with claude plugin uninstall codesign@anthropic-plugin-directory, and do step 05 in full afterwards even if CoDesign still answers in this session. Then, if the list shows CoDesign as “Done when” names it (Claude Code: codesign@imgly-codesign), skip to step 05; if CoDesign is already usable in this session and you removed nothing, skip step 05’s reload or restart too and give the user only the onboarding message. Otherwise run the commands for your agent, in order, in the terminal. The plugin includes the server, so there is no separate server to register. If a command fails because the marketplace or plugin is already installed, that is fine: move on. Then run the list command again to confirm. If your agent shows the CoDesign server as failed, Node is missing or older than 18 on the PATH the agent uses: go back to step 01. If the plugin install fails and you cannot fix it, use step 04 instead.

claude plugin marketplace add imgly/codesign

claude plugin install codesign@imgly-codesign

codex plugin marketplace add imgly/codesign

codex plugin add codesign@imgly-codesign

git clone https://github.com/imgly/codesign

agy plugin install ./codesign/plugins/codesign

copilot plugin marketplace add imgly/codesign

copilot plugin install codesign@imgly-codesign

d=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/imgly/codesign "$d/codesign" && mkdir -p ~/.cursor/plugins/local && rm -rf ~/.cursor/plugins/local/codesign && cp -R "$d/codesign/plugins/codesign" ~/.cursor/plugins/local/ && rm -rf "$d"

MCP server route: add the CoDesign MCP server

Skip this step if you installed the plugin in step 03. Here you add the CoDesign MCP server directly. The server is the same everywhere: the command npx with the arguments -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio, a local stdio server with no environment variables. Keep @latest so npx re-resolves the package instead of reusing a stale cached copy, and keep stdio, which selects the transport.

Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity or Copilot CLI. Use the command for your agent below, then its list command from “Done when”.

claude mcp add --scope user codesign -- npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

codex mcp add codesign -- npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

agy mcp add codesign -- npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

copilot mcp add codesign -- npx -y @imgly/codesign-mcp@latest stdio

Any other CLI agent. Most have an mcp subcommand; --help on your CLI names it. Pass it the name codesign and the command above.

A config file. If your client reads a JSON config, merge the block below into it, keeping any servers already listed. Match the shape of the file you find: the wrapper key is mcpServers in most clients, but a few name it differently, and the command and args pair is the part that matters.

An agent framework or SDK. If you run inside an app built on an agent framework, register a stdio MCP server in its MCP client configuration with the same command and arguments, under the name codesign. If the framework connects MCP servers at runtime, connect it now and check that the codesign server connects and offers tools.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codesign": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@imgly/codesign-mcp@latest", "stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Then confirm it registered: run your client’s list command, the counterpart of whatever you registered with, and check that codesign appears. If it has no list command, read the config file back and check that the entry is valid JSON and sits in the file the client actually loads. A wrong Node version and a typo in the command cover most failures; fix them yourself and show the user the output only if you cannot.

Hand back to the user, the only manual step

A new install is not available in this session yet, so do not try to use CoDesign now (unless your framework connected it at runtime in step 04). This last part is the one thing you cannot do for the user. After installing or removing a plugin in Claude Code, tell them to type /reload-plugins, which loads the plugin without leaving the session and is harmless if it already loaded (if CoDesign still does not appear, they restart Claude Code). After a plugin install in Cursor, tell them to run Developer: Reload Window. After an MCP server install, and in any other client, tell them to restart the agent. Then they send the message below. It starts a short guided flow that explains what CoDesign does and produces one finished design. No account is needed. Signing in to a free IMG.LY account is optional and only adds AI image generation.

start the CoDesign onboarding