Quickstart — VS Code

Get a new project wired into Tapestry in about 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

• VS Code installed
• The Claude Code extension installed in VS Code
• tapestry-cli installed: pip install tapestry-cli (or run it from the tapestry monorepo via python -m tapestry_cli)

4 steps

1. Open your project in VS Code.

2. In the Claude Code chat panel, register the marketplace + install both plugins:

/plugin marketplace add Lizo-RoadTown/tapestry
/plugin install tapestry-discipline@tapestry
/plugin install tapestry-patterns@tapestry

3. In the integrated terminal (or any terminal at your project root):

tapestry onboard --slug my-project-name --registry-url <your-project-registry-url>

--slug is required. This single command registers the project with the Project Registry first — this is mandatory: if no registry is reachable it aborts and writes nothing, and the default registry URL is a placeholder, so pass --registry-url (or set TAPESTRY_REGISTRY_URL). Then it writes:

• .env with LOOM_PROJECT_ID (the registry-assigned id) + the shared OTEL_* block
• .mcp.json declaring the loom-memory MCP server (with the Bearer ${TAPESTRY_MEMORY_API_KEY} header)
• .project-intelligence/ (flat) with agent-profile.json, project-context.json, observatory-config.json (plus local-skills/ + lessons-learned/ subdirs)
• .claude/settings.json enabling both tapestry plugins
• a starter CLAUDE.md skeleton, .gitignore, and a docs/ + skills/ tree

4. Reload VS Code: Cmd+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window.

Verify it worked

Open the Claude Code chat panel and start a new session. You should see:

• An auto-recall block at the top of the conversation showing past memories tagged for this project (empty on first session — that’s normal)
• A [loom-discipline] Discipline check: PROBE files before asserting ... line at the top of every one of your messages

If neither appears, see Recover from common failures.

What tapestry onboard does NOT do

• Install the Claude Code extension itself (do that from the VS Code marketplace)
• Run the plugin installs (those happen inside Claude Code chat — step 2 above)
• Reload VS Code (manual — step 4 above)
• Author your project-specific CLAUDE.md content (it seeds a starter skeleton — edit it to fit your project)
• Add per-repo snapshot scripts (not needed — the SessionStart hook runs the canonical snapshot script from the tapestry-patterns plugin)

For the comprehensive walkthrough including those items, see Set up a new project.

Notes

• Runtime emission strings: the discipline reminder you’ll see in your chat says [loom-discipline] — that’s the runtime label, distinct from the install name tapestry-discipline. Both are correct.
• Re-running tapestry onboard: idempotent. It merges into existing files rather than overwriting. Safe to re-run if you want to ensure the configuration is current.
• Other IDEs: per-IDE quickstart pages are coming. The underlying setup (run tapestry onboard, install the two plugins, reload) is the same across IDEs; what differs is how you reach the Claude Code chat panel + how you reload.