Install
Two ways in. Install it as a plugin and the commands are available in every project, or clone the repo and use it in place. Either way you are running the same skills, agents, and doctrine.
Before you start
You need Claude Code, Anthropic’s
terminal-based coding tool. Boyd’s Agent is not a separate application —
it is a set of skills, subagents, and one doctrine file that run inside Claude
Code. If you can type /help at a Claude Code prompt, you are ready.
You will also want a working directory for your strategy work. The agent
writes each system into a systems/<name>/ folder relative to wherever you
launched Claude Code, so pick a folder you are happy to keep notes in — a
dedicated repo, a scratch directory, anything under version control is ideal.
The plugin gives you the commands. Your current folder holds the state. The doctrine ships inside the plugin and is loaded fresh on every reasoning step.
Path A — install from the marketplace
This is the recommended path. The plugin is published through the jdinkla marketplace.
1. Add the marketplace (once):
/plugin marketplace add jdinkla/claude-marketplace
2. Install the plugin:
/plugin install boyds-agent@jdinkla-marketplace
Or open the interactive browser with /plugin, find Boyd’s Agent in
the marketplace tab, and install it there.
3. Confirm the commands are live. Type / and you should see the seven
boyd-* commands in the list. A quick check:
/boyd-status
With no systems yet, this reports an empty slate and points you at
/boyd-init. That is the expected first response.
When you run a command, the agent creates and edits
systems/<name>/ in your current working directory,
not inside the plugin cache. The doctrine and the worked example are read from
the plugin’s own copy. You get the commands everywhere; your situation
stays in your project.
Path B — clone and use in place
If you would rather read and tweak the source — the doctrine, the skill prompts, the subagent boundaries — clone the repository and open it directly.
git clone https://github.com/jdinkla/boyds-agent.git
cd boyds-agent
claude
Because the repo ships a .claude/ directory with the skills and agents, the
/boyd-* commands are available the moment Claude Code opens the folder. Your
systems are created under systems/ in the repo (git-ignored space is yours to
arrange). This mode is best when you want to study or modify how the agent
reasons.
Plugin and clone modes load the identical skills, subagents, and
doctrine/boyd-doctrine.md. The only difference is whether the
doctrine resolves from the plugin cache or the repo root — the skills handle
both automatically.
Read a real one before building your own
The repository ships a fully-populated exemplar:
examples/orchid-saas/ — a
twelve-person bootstrapped SaaS company facing a venture-backed incumbent that
just announced a move into its segment. It has three completed cycles of state,
one open mismatch under active test, and one closed mismatch whose model was
falsified.
Open those files first. You will understand the schema faster by reading a worked system than by reading the spec. The tutorial walks straight through them.
Bootstrap your first system
When you are ready:
/boyd-init my-system
Claude will offer the fast path — paste everything you know in a paragraph or two — or walk you through a short interview covering the system rules, your current situation, and who the adversary is. It then seeds an initial orientation for both sides, with every early belief carrying visible uncertainty, and tells you the loop from there.
Update with /plugin (marketplace mode) or git pull
(clone mode). Your systems/ folders are independent of the plugin
version, so updates never touch your accumulated state.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
/boyd-* commands don’t appear |
Plugin not enabled, or not in the cloned repo | Run /plugin and check it’s installed and enabled; or confirm you launched Claude Code inside the repo |
| Commands appear but can’t find the doctrine | Running an old clone without the dual-path fix | git pull to get the latest skill files |
| Marketplace not found | Marketplace never added | Re-run /plugin marketplace add jdinkla/claude-marketplace |
| A system folder showed up somewhere odd | Claude Code was launched from a different directory | cd to your intended project before launching, then re-run the command |