Amplitude Setup

Amplitude Wizard — Agent Setup

You are driving @amplitude/wizard (the npm CLI) to set up Amplitude analytics in the user's codebase. Follow this protocol exactly. The wizard's NDJSON contract emits structured events on stdout — your job is to read them, surface the user-relevant ones, and stop for explicit user confirmation before any file or Amplitude project is modified.

Protocol — non-negotiables

1. Never run npx @amplitude/wizard (the bare interactive entrypoint). It assumes a TTY and a human at the keyboard. Always use the subcommands below.
2. Never run apply in the background. Run it in the foreground so its NDJSON streams through your tool output in real time. Backgrounding it forces you to poll a tail file with sleep && tail, which adds minutes of latency between each progress update.
3. NEVER spawn a second apply while one is already running. If a previous apply invocation is still streaming events on stdout, do NOT start another. Each apply spawns an inner Claude SDK agent that writes files; two of them stomp each other's edits and produce contradictory setup_complete payloads. Wait for the current run's run_completed event before any retry.
4. Always pass --confirm-app when running plan or apply. This forces the wizard to ask which Amplitude app to write into instead of silently picking the first one it finds.
5. Always pass --install-dir <abs-path> and confirm it's a real project. If the user invokes the wizard from their home directory, a multi-project parent (~/dev/, ~/code/, etc.), or any directory without a clear project marker (package.json, pyproject.toml, Cargo.toml, go.mod, Gemfile, pom.xml, build.gradle), STOP and ask the user which project to set up. Do not guess.
6. Never auto-approve the event plan. When you see type: needs_input with code: event_plan, STOP. Show the proposed events to the user. Re-invoke apply with --approve-events, --skip-events, or --revise-events "<feedback>" based on their answer.
7. Always render type: diagnostic events as user-visible status. Transient retries should look like ⚠ retrying (2/6)..., not silent gaps.
8. After setup_complete, lock your project context to amplitude.appId. Use only that app id for follow-up Amplitude MCP queries (charts, dashboards, events). Do not reuse any project context cached earlier in the session.
9. Wizard-managed artifacts are owned by the wizard. Do NOT use Write / Edit on .amplitude/events.json, .amplitude/dashboard.json, .amplitude-events.json, or .amplitude-dashboard.json. The wizard's confirm_event_plan MCP tool persists the events file in the canonical shape; the dashboard watcher mirrors the dashboard JSON. Direct writes are denied by the inner-agent permission hook with a clear error message — if you see that deny, switch to the MCP tool.

Step 1 — preflight (cheap, no writes)

Run all three in parallel; they're fast and read-only:

npx @amplitude/wizard whoami --json
npx @amplitude/wizard detect --json
npx @amplitude/wizard status --json

Tell the user, in one sentence, what you found:

Auth: <email> (Org: <orgName>, Region: <region>) Framework: <frameworkName> detected at <install-dir>

If whoami.loggedIn === false: stop and ask the user to run npx @amplitude/wizard login in their terminal (browser OAuth — agents cannot drive it). After they confirm "logged in", re-run whoami --json to verify.

Step 2 — plan (no writes; read-only)

npx @amplitude/wizard plan --confirm-app --json --install-dir <abs-path>

The output stream contains, in order:

1. type: lifecycle, data.event: setup_context, phase: plan — the resolved Amplitude scope (region, org, project). Show this to the user.
2. type: plan, data.event: plan — the planId, framework, SDK package, and proposed events.

Render the proposed events as a short bulleted list with one line each. Ask the user:

"I'll instrument these N events. Approve, revise, or skip? Reply 'approve', 'revise: ', or 'skip'."

Capture the planId — you need it for apply.

Step 3 — apply (foreground, NDJSON streamed)

Pick exactly one of these based on the user's reply:

npx @amplitude/wizard apply --plan-id <planId> --confirm-app --approve-events --yes --json
npx @amplitude/wizard apply --plan-id <planId> --confirm-app --skip-events --yes --json
npx @amplitude/wizard apply --plan-id <planId> --confirm-app --revise-events "<feedback>" --yes --json

Do NOT background this. Stream the NDJSON live and surface events to the user as they arrive. Translate each event type into one short status line:

Step 4 — capture setup_complete

When you see type: result, data.event: setup_complete, this is the authoritative artifact list. Pin these values for the rest of the session:

• amplitude.appId — the ONLY project handle to use for follow-up Amplitude MCP queries. Disregard any earlier project context.
• amplitude.dashboardUrl — show this as a clickable link to the user.
• files.written / files.modified — summarize so the user knows what changed.
• events — final approved list of analytics events the wizard wired up.

The wizard also persists this scope to ampli.json in the install dir (AppId, OrgId, ProjectId, EnvName, DashboardUrl, DashboardId) so future agent sessions can recover it without re-running setup.

After setup_complete, you should see exactly one type: lifecycle, data.event: run_completed with outcome: success and exitCode: 0. Absence of run_completed before stream EOF means the wizard crashed — surface a generic failure and ask the user to share ~/.amplitude/wizard/runs/<run_id>/log.txt.

Handling needs_input

When type: needs_input arrives, the wizard has exited with code 12 (INPUT_REQUIRED) and is waiting for you to re-invoke. Do NOT pick the recommended value silently. Show the user the question + choices, get an answer, then re-invoke apply with the appropriate resumeFlags from the event payload (or compose them yourself):

For any other code you don't recognize, surface the message and choices verbatim and let the user pick. Each choice carries resumeFlags for its own re-invocation — use those rather than composing your own.

Recovery

What to NEVER do

• Do not background apply. Run it in foreground so events stream live.
• Do not spawn a second apply while one is running. Wait for run_completed.
• Do not auto-pick an Amplitude app, even when there's only one match. Always pass --confirm-app and surface the setup_context to the user.
• Do not silently approve the event plan. The user's analytics taxonomy is their decision, not yours.
• Do not assume an existing project context. After setup_complete, the authoritative appId is the one in that event — replace any earlier value.
• Do not log raw NDJSON lines to the user. Translate each event into a one-line status using the table above.
• Do not run the wizard from the user's home directory or a multi-project parent dir without explicit --install-dir. Confirm the project first.
• Do not Write or Edit .amplitude/events.json, .amplitude/dashboard.json, .amplitude-events.json, or .amplitude-dashboard.json. They are owned by the wizard's MCP tools.

Starting fresh — wizard reset

If a previous wizard run left artifacts that no longer match the user's intent (stale event plan, wrong dashboard, instrumented for the wrong Amplitude app), run:

npx @amplitude/wizard reset --install-dir <abs-path> --json

This deletes .amplitude/, the legacy .amplitude-*.json dotfiles, and amplitude-setup-report.md from the project, and strips auth-scoped fields (OrgId, AppId, AppName, EnvName, DashboardUrl, DashboardId) from ampli.json. It does NOT log the user out and does NOT remove any track() calls already wired into source code — the user has to revert those manually if they want a true blank slate (git checkout is the safe path; wizard reset won't touch your code).

When to suggest reset:

• Previous run targeted the wrong Amplitude app.
• User wants to switch from one Amplitude org to another.
• The proposed event plan no longer fits the codebase (UI changed, new flows added).

When NOT to suggest reset:

• The wizard is mid-run. Wait for run_completed.
• The user just wants to add more events. Re-running plan + apply is enough; the wizard supplements the existing plan rather than replacing it.

Quick reference (full command shape)

# Probe + plan, in parallel
npx @amplitude/wizard whoami --json
npx @amplitude/wizard detect --json --install-dir <dir>
npx @amplitude/wizard plan --confirm-app --json --install-dir <dir>

# Apply (pick exactly one event-plan flag)
npx @amplitude/wizard apply \
  --plan-id <id> \
  --confirm-app \
  --approve-events \
  --yes --json \
  --install-dir <dir>

# Resumes after needs_input
npx @amplitude/wizard apply --plan-id <id> --app-id <id> --approve-events --yes --json

See references/agent-protocol.md (in this skill) for the full NDJSON event catalog and references/example-session.jsonl for a worked happy-path session.