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Catalyst

Quick Start

Get Catalyst installed and working in your project in under 5 minutes.

Install Prerequisites

Section titled “Install Prerequisites”
  • Claude Code installed and working
  • HumanLayer CLI for the persistent thoughts system:
Terminal window
pip install humanlayer
# or
pipx install humanlayer

Run the Setup Script

Section titled “Run the Setup Script”
Terminal window
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coalesce-labs/catalyst/main/setup-catalyst.sh
chmod +x setup-catalyst.sh
./setup-catalyst.sh

The script will:

  • Check and install prerequisites (HumanLayer, jq)
  • Set up a thoughts repository (one per org)
  • Create project configuration
  • Configure worktree directories
  • Prompt for API tokens (Linear, Sentry, etc.)
  • Link your project to shared thoughts

Install the Plugin

Section titled “Install the Plugin”

In Claude Code:

Terminal window
/plugin marketplace add coalesce-labs/catalyst
/plugin install catalyst-dev

Restart Claude Code after installing.

Add Catalyst Context to Your Project

Section titled “Add Catalyst Context to Your Project”

Copy the Catalyst snippet into your project’s CLAUDE.md so Claude Code understands the available workflows:

Terminal window
cat plugins/dev/templates/CLAUDE_SNIPPET.md >> .claude/CLAUDE.md

Try It Out

Section titled “Try It Out”

Start a Claude Code session and run:

/research-codebase

Follow the prompts to research your codebase. Catalyst will spawn parallel agents, document what exists, and save findings to thoughts/shared/research/.

Optional Plugins

Section titled “Optional Plugins”

Catalyst is a 5-plugin system. Install what you need:

Terminal window
# Project management (Linear integration)
/plugin install catalyst-pm


# Analytics (PostHog integration)
/plugin install catalyst-analytics


# Debugging (Sentry integration)
/plugin install catalyst-debugging


# Workflow discovery (advanced users)
/plugin install catalyst-meta

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”