Setup

Purpose

Check-only setup under the Check-only carve-out (docs/PLUGIN-PHILOSOPHY.md "Setup is explicit and repeatable" in the marketplace repository): this plugin's configuration surface contains no writable artifact, so check inspects, reports, and offers each remediation, and no apply is offered because there is nothing it could conformingly write. Only the detached observer (see ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/observer.md) has runtime prerequisites and configuration; the other skills are zero-config. The observer's tunables are all native userConfig (the carve-out's native-userConfig class), and its remaining prerequisites are system tools (Python 3.10+, jq — the external-prerequisites class), so setup installs nothing and edits nothing (writing pluginConfigs is what the setup contract forbids).

Action routing: no argument or check runs the check. Non-interactive, never prompts.

check (read-only)

The hook and launcher are the single source of truth for what they require and how they degrade: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/observer-arm.sh, ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/running-retro/scripts/arm_observer.py, and observer.py beside it.

Read it first. Probe what it actually does, don't recite this file. Then run each probe via Bash and report a PASS/FAIL/INFO table with one remediation line per FAIL. Do not modify anything.

When the observer is disabled (observer_enabled off AND no arm invocation in use), every prerequisite absence downgrades from FAIL to INFO, the hook exits through its opt-in gate before touching anything, so a deliberately disabled plugin is not broken. Report the probes informationally and note that re-enabling restores the FAIL semantics.

1. Python 3.10+, the launcher and tailer are stdlib-only Python 3.10+. Probe the same interpreter detection the hook uses (python3 then python, requiring sys.version_info >= (3, 10)). FAIL if none qualifies: without it the hook silently skips arming. Remediation: install Python 3.10+ on PATH.
2. jq, the SessionStart hook parses its stdin (session_id, transcript_path, source, agent_type) with jq. FAIL (auto-arm path only) if absent: the hook exits early and never arms. The manual arm action resolves inputs without jq, so absence is INFO for that path. Remediation: install jq (https://jqlang.org/download/).
3. claude CLI on PATH, the autonomous analysis leg invokes claude -p. INFO if absent: the observer still distills and retains observations under its plugin work dir; the analysis run is skipped and nothing is written to the ledger.
4. Observer config. Report the effective value of each native key (an unexpanded ${user_config.…} token or empty means the default): ${user_config.observer_enabled} (default off), ${user_config.observer_analysis_enabled} (default on), ${user_config.observer_analysis_model} (default claude-haiku-4-5), ${user_config.observer_analysis_bare} (default off), ${user_config.observer_idle_seconds} (default 900), ${user_config.observer_poll_seconds} (default 5), ${user_config.observer_max_seconds} (default 86400). Call out two hazards: observer_analysis_bare on is a FAIL on an OAuth-login install (the analysis run reports "Not logged in"); observer_idle_seconds below the machine's longest expected single turn risks firing analysis on a partial transcript.
5. Hook registration. INFO: confirm the plugin is enabled for this project (/plugin → Installed) rather than parsing settings files. The SessionStart hook only auto-arms when observer_enabled is on.

Remediation guidance (printed by check; the operator applies it)

No write path. For each FAIL, check closes by offering the remediation: install the missing tool, or route observer reconfiguration through Claude Code's native flow. Do not write the plugin cache, Claude Code user settings, or pluginConfigs.

Reconfigure the observer's userConfig keys through Claude Code's native flow, per the marketplace's plugin-reconfiguration convention (https://github.com/melodic-software/claude-code-plugins/blob/main/docs/conventions/plugin-reconfiguration/README.md, which owns the verified-version record): interactive /plugin configure session-flow@<marketplace> any time, or headless claude plugin install session-flow@<marketplace> -s <scope> --config <key>=<value> (repeatable per key) — against an already-installed plugin it prints already installed and still writes the value. Do not uninstall to reconfigure: that drops the stored pluginConfigs entry outright, resetting every option in the README's Options reference to its manifest default, with nothing left to read the old values from. -s defaults to user; pass the scope claude plugin list reports, and run from that project's directory for a project/local scope, or the write lands at a scope that does not load. Afterwards rerun check in a fresh session — the rendered ${user_config.*} is injected at skill load and each hook's CLAUDE_PLUGIN_OPTION_* is fixed at session start, so a same-session check still reports the OLD value; report the observed effective value, never an unobserved change.

Gotchas

• Setup covers only the observer. The other session-flow skills need no setup; only the observer has external prerequisites and a userConfig surface.
• observer_analysis_bare and auth. --bare drops the login credential state on OAuth-login installs. Leave it off unless auth is an env-var API key. Full detail in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/observer.md.