Installation

Installation

veil-mcp is an MCP server over stdio. It needs Node ≥ 18.

Claude Code (fastest)

claude mcp add veil -- npx -y veil-mcp
npx -y veil-mcp init      # writes the "prefer sh_run" nudge into this project's CLAUDE.md

npx fetches and runs the published package — no clone, no global install.

Other MCP agents (Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, …)

Add to the agent's MCP server config:

{ "mcpServers": { "veil": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "veil-mcp"] } } }

Without npm (straight from GitHub)

claude mcp add veil -- npx -y github:vkmtx/veil-mcp

The prepare script builds dist/ on install, so this works directly from the repo.

From source

git clone https://github.com/vkmtx/veil-mcp && cd veil-mcp
npm install                       # builds dist/ via the prepare script
claude mcp add veil -- node "$(pwd)/dist/index.js"
# dev, no build step:  npm run dev   (tsx src/index.ts)

Making the agent prefer it

veil is opt-in and complementary to Bash — its value only lands when the agent reaches for sh_run. Two levers:

1. The nudge — veil init writes a short block into the project's CLAUDE.md.
2. The guard hook — hooks/veil-guard.sh is a PreToolUse guard that steers verbose/dangerous Bash to sh_run while letting interactive/long-running/background commands through. Fail-open, with a VEIL_BYPASS=1 escape.

See FAQ for the honest adoption caveats.