Quickstart

Octos runs as an MCP server inside the agent you already use. Register it once, and every governed operation shows up as a tool your assistant can call — the gate·warrant·trace door holds across the MCP boundary, so nothing writes to your graph without passing it.

1 · Register the door

Octos is a local MCP server. Add it to your agent — shown here in Claude Code; the same pattern works in any MCP host:

Identity is pinned at launch, never chosen per call — you set who's writing (OCTOS_PRINCIPAL), their authority (OCTOS_WARRANT), and the graph log (OCTOS_LOG_PATH). A model calling a tool can't promote itself.

2 · Prime the session

Your assistant now has octos_* tools. Start with the one that reads your working set at a glance:

It returns what's live — goals, open threads, recent decisions, what's overdue — assembled from real graph state, not guessed.

3 · Make a governed write

Every write goes through the one door. Capture something, or declare a project, and the runtime records it with provenance stamped by the gate — not taken from the caller's word:

Pick your path

Next steps