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Get StartedAgent PluginOverview

Install the Arcade agent plugin

The Arcade agent plugin bundles a connection to Arcade’s hosted gateway with two skills, three commands, and the arcade-operator subagent. The gateway gives your agent thousands of tools for email, calendar, chat, issues, docs, and dozens of other apps. The rest of the plugin helps your agent choose and use those tools. You authorize each app in the browser the first time it comes up, with no to create and no gateway to configure.

Outcomes

Install the Arcade plugin in your agent and run your first task against a connected app.

Prerequisites

  1. A supported client: Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, Codex, or Claude Desktop
  2. An Arcade

The plugin is built for personal use. For team use, consider a dedicated MCP Gateway with a curated list. Add a User Source when end should sign in through your organization’s identity provider. See from personal use to team rollout.

Install

Each client installs plugins differently. Use the path for yours.

The cross-client npx plugins add command does not finish every client install. Use the client-native steps below so the gateway and every supported plugin component load together.

Add the Arcade marketplace, then install the plugin:

Terminal
claude plugin marketplace add ArcadeAI/arcade-plugin
claude plugin install arcade@arcade

Run /reload-plugins if Claude Code is already open. Verify the install with claude plugin list or /plugin.

After installation, reload your or start a new session. Using another client that does not load plugins? Connect to the same gateway with the tools-only Arcade bundle.

Sign in

Authentication happens in two layers:

  1. Into the gateway. Your client will ask you to authenticate when it first connects. You sign in to Arcade in the browser, and the client can reach the gateway from then on.
  2. Into each app. When a task needs an app, your gives you a browser sign-in link for the required permissions. After approval, Arcade stores the authorization. You may need to reconnect if the connection expires or a later task needs additional permissions.

You never give your agent an or a password for either layer. To check or manage connections, ask your to “Check my Arcade connection,” “Show my connected apps,” or “Connect Google.” You can connect an app before you need it. Clients that support Arcade commands also provide the shortcuts listed below.

Arcade uses the app connections authorized for your signed-in identity. Authorize only the you intend the to use.

Privacy

The current plugin build sends no client-side usage telemetry. The build turns telemetry off, and no environment setting turns it on. Requests you make through Arcade still go to its hosted gateway and the apps you authorize. See Arcade’s privacy policy .

Gateway sign-in and app authorization stay separate on every Arcade gateway, including the one in the plugin. Server-level and tool-level authorization goes deeper on the split.

What you get in each agent

Every install connects to the same Arcade gateway and gets the same tools. What differs is how much of the rest of the plugin each can load.

AgentToolsSkillsSubagentCommandsRuleHooks
Cursor IDE and Cloud Agents✅2✅3¹✅—²
Cursor CLI✅2✅3—✅³
Claude Code✅2✅3—✅
Claude Cowork✅2✅3—partial⁴
GitHub Copilot CLI✅2✅——✅⁵
VS Code✅2✅———⁶
Codex and ChatGPT local runtime✅2————⁷
Claude Desktop Chat✅2————
OpenCode✅—————
Any other Streamable HTTP MCP client✅—————
  • ¹ Cursor IDE lists the commands on the plugin page but does not show them in the / menu.
  • ² Cursor IDE and Cloud do not run plugin hooks. The always-apply rule carries the routing guidance instead.
  • ³ Cursor CLI runs the session hook but does not load the always-apply rule.
  • ⁴ Cowork runs the prompt and subagent hooks but does not add the session-start text to the main conversation.
  • ⁵ Copilot CLI runs session and subagent hooks, but drops prompt-hook output from configuration files.
  • ⁶ VS Code reads the Copilot hook file but cannot run its Plugins hook commands yet.
  • ⁷ Codex does not run Plugins lifecycle hooks yet.

Here is what each of those is for.

Commands

Cursor, Claude Code, and Cowork load all three commands. Claude Code and Cowork namespace them as /arcade:arcade-status, /arcade:arcade-connect, and /arcade:arcade-apps.

/arcade-status

Reports whether the gateway is reachable, whether you have signed in, and which apps you have authorized.

/arcade-connect <app>

Authorizes an app on demand, so you are not interrupted mid-task.

/arcade-apps

Lists the apps you have connected and lets you disconnect one.

Skills

Skills are instructions your reads on its own, so you do not have to invoke them in most clients. try-arcade teaches it to turn a request like “reply to that thread” into the right sequence of calls across your apps. scale-arcade handles the other kind of question, the one about moving a workflow onto a team gateway, and it walks you through the decisions on this page against your own . Codex does not expose these skills as slash commands. Choose @Arcade or $arcade:try-arcade, and use $arcade:scale-arcade for team-rollout guidance.

Subagent

The arcade-operator subagent runs an app task in its own and reports back just the result. Arcade exposes a lot of , and searching them fills a conversation with noise that pushes out your actual work. The operator absorbs that. Cursor, Claude Code, Cowork, Copilot CLI, and VS Code load it. Codex and Claude Desktop Chat do not.

Rule and hooks

The rule and hooks tell your that Arcade exists and when reaching for it is the right move, which is the difference between a that sits unused and one your agent actually picks up. Cursor IDE and Cloud Agents use an always-apply rule. Cursor CLI, Claude Code, Cowork, and Copilot CLI run the hooks their hosts support.

The columns thin out because the Agent Plugins  1.0 specification only makes skills and servers portable. Commands, subagents, hooks, and editor rules are specific to each , so the plugin ships them where the agents that support them will find them.

How Arcade chooses a connection

Arcade prefers the plugin’s gateway. If it cannot complete a task for a reason other than sign-in or permission denial, your agent may use another already-authorized connection within the task you approved. It checks the intended app before using another Arcade gateway. Sign-in and permission failures require your attention. The does not switch connections to get around them. The plugin instructs your agent to confirm the action and destination before changing something in an app.

arcade-operator falls back only to another authorized Arcade gateway. Fallback to any other tool belongs to the parent .

Try it

This gateway includes every optimized toolkit in the catalog. Try asking your :

  • “Send a summary of tomorrow’s calendar events to me on Slack.”
  • “Read my Granola notes from last week, check them against Linear, and file anything I promised that is not a ticket yet. Wait for me before creating anything.”
  • “Find unread mail that needs a reply. Look the sender up in HubSpot if you can, draft a response, and Slack me the draft before sending.”
  • “Pull my open GitHub pull requests, my Linear issues, and tomorrow’s calendar. Write a standup update and send it to me on Slack.”
  • “Search my Drive and Notion for the product spec my team uses, then drop a one-paragraph summary in Slack.”

Or ask “What can Arcade do?” and pick a workflow from the answer.

Next steps

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