Add mike to Claude Code with mods

A mod is a small add-on that Claude Code loads into its own terminal screen. mike ships five that it installs for you: a sessions pane and mail notices, a pane for a fleet’s state, a reply route for mike’s messages, a list of the mods in a session, and work threads. They put mike’s information where you are already typing, instead of in the web UI. Mods change how Claude Code looks and what it offers you; none changes what mike captures, and none is needed for mike to work.

A sixth, wiretap, ships but is off unless you ask for it. This page covers only what an installed mike carries.

Install them

The setup wizard offers them on its Claude Code step (Setup). To do it from a terminal:

mike claude-code mods

This adds the mods’ folders to CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS in the env section of ~/.claude/settings.json. Every other setting and every folder already listed stays, and mike records what it added so that mike uninstall removes only that. Restart Claude Code afterwards.

mike finds the mods in share/mike/mods next to its binary, which is where a Homebrew or archive install keeps them (see Install). If it finds none, setup says “No folder of mods was found beside this mike binary or in a checkout” and the command installs nothing.

Check the result with mike claude-code status; its mods: line says how many folders are listed.

Turn mods off

• All of them: mike claude-code mods --remove takes out the folders mike added and nothing else.
• One: edit CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_DIRS in ~/.claude/settings.json and delete that mod’s folder from the colon-separated list, then restart Claude Code. Your own entries in the list are never touched by mike.
• For one session: none; Claude Code reads the list when it starts.

Running mike claude-code mods again after a removal puts them back.

See what is loaded

Type /mods in Claude Code. A pane lists each mod the session loaded, with its commands (click one to run it), what it adds and what it does on its own, and a filter box. /mods text prints the same as text. Under the prompt, the mods that offer a button show as one row of chips (for example Mods, Fleet, Sessions); the Hide chip puts the row away and /mods buttons brings it back.

The mods mod needs nothing from mike.

What each mod adds

mike

Shows mike’s view of your project inside Claude Code. /seats opens a pane of the project’s sessions. The status line shows unread mike mail and changes other sessions made to your checkout. /recall searches past turns. With the matching setting on, it also adds fitting lessons to a prompt, and it tells mike which mods the session loaded.

With the fictional docs session in ~/projects/site: open /seats and the pane lists docs with any other session in that project; /recall Homebrew first finds the turn where you corrected Claude.

fleet-comms

Works only in a session that mike started for a fleet; any other session loads it and gets nothing from it. /fleet-comms opens a pane with the fleet’s state as mike fleet status draws it, then its messages. While the fleet runs, a band above the prompt carries the latest message and NEEDS YOU, and the status line says NEEDS YOU or NOTHING IS MOVING. A fleet that is done, failed or not yet started raises nothing. See Fleets.

In a fleet session whose task has a goal, the mod starts Claude Code’s /goal with that goal after the session’s first turn.

mike-mail

Sends your reply to a session that wrote to you through mike back through mike’s mailbox, instead of Claude Code’s own route, with a notice. This keeps the thread and delivery receipts visible in Sessions.

mods

The /mods list described above.

thread

Work threads held in mike, so a multi-session job survives a restart: /thread:list, /thread:get, /thread:new, /thread:checkpoint, /thread:depend, and /thread-board for a pane of the project’s open threads grouped by status. The first prompt of a session carries the project’s open threads, one line each, at most 2 KB. Typing # and part of a slug offers the threads. See Threads.

What is not installed

• wiretap records prompts, system-prompt parts, model steps and tool calls to a JSON file for comparison with mike’s capture. It writes everything a session sees to disk, so it is installed only with mike claude-code mods --with-wiretap. See Privacy.
• Nothing else. The mods work on their own; they need no other add-on.

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