{"doc":"setup","title":"Set up Gamestage","markdown":"# Set up Gamestage\n\nGamestage takes a game your AI built to a live game fans can play, with secure scoring, data feeds and hosting. Set it up once, in the AI you already use, then [build your first game](/docs/getting-started).\n\n## In Claude, on the web or the desktop\n\n```\ngamestageai/agent-skills\n```\n\n1. In Claude, open “Customize”, then “Plugins”, then “Add”, then “Add marketplace”.\n2. Paste the repository above and press “Sync”, then install Gamestage from that marketplace.\n3. Ask Claude “Show me how Gamestage works”. Sign in to Gamestage when Claude asks; that creates your account if you do not have one.\n\nThe plugin gives Claude both halves of Gamestage: how to build a game (the formats, rules and data) and the tools to create, preview and publish it. It brings its own connection to Gamestage, so you do not add a connector as well. You change no network settings and run no commands.\n\nOn a Team or Enterprise plan your admin can add the plugin once for everyone, so check whether it is already there.\n\nIf Gamestage cannot make games for you, your copy of the plugin may be out of date: Claude does not always pick up a new version on its own. Remove Gamestage under “Customize”, then “Plugins”, and install it again from the marketplace. If Claude asks you to allow a domain or change a network setting, Gamestage is not attached to that chat: check the plugin is installed and start a new chat.\n\n## In Claude Code\n\n```\n/plugin marketplace add gamestageai/agent-skills\n/plugin install gamestage@gamestage\n```\n\nRun both inside Claude Code, then ask “Take my game to production with Gamestage.” The first adds the Gamestage marketplace, the second installs the plugin for your user account, so every project on this machine has it. From a terminal, the same two steps are `claude plugin marketplace add gamestageai/agent-skills` and `claude plugin install gamestage@gamestage`.\n\nThe plugin connects Claude Code to Gamestage at `https://gamestage.ai/mcp`. The first time Claude uses it, Claude Code asks you to sign in to Gamestage in your browser. Run `/mcp` to sign in before then, or to see whether you are connected.\n\nTo update it, run these, then restart Claude Code:\n\n```sh\nclaude plugin marketplace update gamestage\nclaude plugin update gamestage@gamestage\n```\n\n## In Codex, Cursor or another coding agent\n\nPaste this into your agent:\n\n```\nRead https://gamestage.ai/skill and follow it to take my game to production with Gamestage.\n```\n\nThe agent reads the Gamestage instructions and follows them with you. It needs to be able to read a web page and run a command. To keep the instructions installed rather than read each time:\n\n```sh\nnpx skills add https://gamestage.ai/skill\n```\n\nThis runs `skills`, Vercel Labs' open installer. It copies one Markdown file into each coding agent's own skills folder, `.claude/skills` or `.codex/skills`, asks whether to install for this project or for your user account, and changes nothing else. Run it again to update the file.\n\n## In a terminal\n\n```sh\nnpx gamestage start\n```\n\nIt checks what you have and says the next command to run. On WSL, `gamestage login` prints a link and a code: open the link in your Windows browser, confirm, and the terminal carries on. You need Node 22.13 or later; `npx gamestage doctor` checks the rest of your environment and says what is missing. Every page in these docs writes `gamestage <command>`; run it as `npx gamestage <command>`.\n\n## Your account\n\n- **Without an account** you can see the formats, scaffold a game, inspect a prototype, validate a manifest and review a game locally: `gamestage formats`, `create`, `inspect`, `manifest validate` and `review`.\n- **To play your game against the real Engine**, you need to be signed in. That covers `gamestage dev` and `verify`, and works as soon as `gamestage login` has created your account, before anybody has approved it. Until then you can register three games, and each practice round takes up to 100 plays a day. `gamestage status` lists the games you have registered and how many of the three they use.\n- **To publish it**, you need the account approved by Monterosa. That covers `gamestage deploy`. In Claude, you can make a game and play it in the chat before then; Claude tells you when publishing has to wait.\n- **One account, two doors.** Creating an account on gamestage.ai and running `gamestage login` give you the same account.\n- **Use a work email to publish.** Personal addresses such as Gmail or Hotmail can sign in, build and play their game with `dev` and `verify`, but cannot apply for approval, so they cannot publish.\n- **Approval.** Monterosa approves each account before its first publish, and emails you when it is done.\n\n## Other ways in\n\n### Add the tools without the instructions\n\nIf you cannot add plugins in Claude, add the Gamestage connector instead: in Claude, open “Customize”, then “Connectors”, add `https://gamestage.ai/mcp`, connect and sign in. Claude can then create, preview and publish your game, but it does not get the instructions on how to build one, so it guesses more about formats, rules and data. Custom connectors need a paid Claude plan.\n\n### Install the skill from GitHub\n\n```sh\nnpx skills add gamestageai/agent-skills\n```\n\nThe same file as `gamestage.ai/skill`, from [github.com/gamestageai/agent-skills](https://github.com/gamestageai/agent-skills). Add `-a claude-code`, `-a codex` or both to choose the agents yourself.\n\n### Keep the CLI as a file on disk\n\n```sh\ncurl -fsSL https://gamestage.ai/cli -o gamestage.mjs\nnode gamestage.mjs start\n```\n\nOne file, which runs nothing until you run it. It never updates itself, so run the `curl` again when the version `start` prints falls behind. In this route, `gamestage <command>` means `node gamestage.mjs <command>`.\n\n## If something goes wrong\n\n| What you see | What to do |\n| --- | --- |\n| “You are not signed in” | Run `gamestage login`, or sign in at gamestage.ai |\n| A refusal saying the account is waiting for approval | Monterosa approves accounts before publishing. Keep building and playing with `dev` and `verify` while you wait |\n| “Update required” | Run the command again as `npx gamestage@latest <command>` |\n| A command refuses something these docs say it accepts | Your `npx` copy may be old. `npx gamestage@latest <command>` always fetches the current version, and `gamestage start` prints the version you have |\n| Claude asks you to allow a domain | Gamestage is not attached to that chat. Check the plugin is installed, then start a new chat |\n"}