Driving John

Install it, then put it to work.

A walk-through: get John into Claude Code, scaffold your first project, and learn the moves that make long-running sessions productive. Then go further with templates and Hamster.

1 · Install

Requires Claude Code. John's toolkit scripts use Python 3.10+.

# add the marketplace, then install the plugin claude plugin marketplace add kitchen-engineer42/joharnessburg claude plugin install john@joharnessburg

Verify it landed with claude plugin list — you should see john@joharnessburg, status enabled.

After install, the using-john skill auto-loads when you start a fresh Claude Code session — that's John's orientation entry point. If it doesn't trigger, just ask Claude: "what is John, how do I use it here?"

2 · Your first project

Open a fresh Claude Code session inside your project directory, then move through these four beats.

01 · Scaffold

Set up the workspace

Run /john:init (or just tell Claude "set up John in this dir"). It creates PLAN.md, CLAUDE.md, and a .john/ working directory in your project.

02 · Inputs

Drop in your source material

Put PDFs, regulations, or sample documents into .john/input/ — whatever the produced app should be built from.

03 · Build

Describe the app

Tell Claude what kind of app to build. It advances through the phases declared in PLAN.md with the iterative driver, dispatching parallel subagents per phase.

04 · Steer

Keep it on track

Check the current phase with /john:status. If a long session goes idle, bring it back with /john:endurance; archive a finished workspace with /john:archive.

3 · Everyday commands

  • /john:init — scaffold PLAN.md, CLAUDE.md, and .john/ in the current project.
  • /john:status — show the current phase and progress.
  • /john:endurance — re-enter long-running mode after the session has gone idle.
  • /john:archive — archive a finished workspace.

A good rhythm: describe the goal, let John run, glance at /john:status between phases, and lean on /john:endurance for the marathon stretches.

4 · Templates & Hamster

Templates specialize John for a family of apps. A template is a diff against vanilla John — it overrides some skills, adds new ones, and ships a starter PLAN.md. Apply one, and the merged plugin is John for that session.

# install a template, apply it, then launch Claude with the merged plugin cp -R ./your-template ~/.claude/plugins/joharnessburg-templates/your-template ~/.claude/plugins/joharnessburg-templates/your-template/apply.sh claude --plugin-dir ~/.claude/plugins/joharnessburg-applied/your-template

Authoring your own template is its own craft — that's what Hamster is for.

Hamster

github.com ↗

A skills bundle + methodology that walks Claude Code through authoring a John template from raw inputs.

5 · Upgrading

# update the marketplace, then the plugin — restart Claude Code after claude plugin marketplace update joharnessburg claude plugin update john@joharnessburg

Auto-update is off by default for third-party marketplaces; turn it on in the /plugin UI → Marketplaces → joharnessburg if you'd like.