Install

Requirements

• Claude Code 2.1 or newer recommended. On 2.0.x the rules still block (verified on 2.0.53), but the reason is shown as a permission prompt instead of an explanation Claude can act on.
• bash (on Windows, Claude Code runs hooks through Git Bash — install Git for Windows if you haven't).
• One JSON parser: jq (recommended — brew install jq / apt install jq), or node, or python3. Anchorwatch picks whichever is present.

Install from the terminal

claude plugin marketplace add anchorwatch-dev/anchorwatch
claude plugin install anchorwatch@anchorwatch

Or inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace add anchorwatch-dev/anchorwatch
/plugin install anchorwatch@anchorwatch

On Claude Code 2.1.268 and newer, installing from the /plugin menu takes effect as soon as you close the menu. On older versions, start a new session or run /reload-plugins. Either way you should see a line like "Anchorwatch guardrails active (v0.1.4): 12 blocking, 13 warning rules" in Claude's context at session start.

Verify

/anchorwatch:doctor

This checks the tools, finds your config, and confirms that git push --force origin main is denied while ls -la passes. Try a dry run yourself:

/anchorwatch:check rm -rf ./build

Scope

Plugins install at user scope by default, so Anchorwatch protects every project. To enable it for a repo and all its contributors instead, install with --scope project — Claude Code records it in .claude/settings.json, and teammates get prompted to install it when they open the repo.

Update

Claude Code refreshes marketplaces in the background once per session. To force it: /plugin marketplace update anchorwatch, then /plugin update anchorwatch@anchorwatch. Release notes are on the changelog.

Uninstall

claude plugin uninstall anchorwatch@anchorwatch. Your .anchorwatch.json files are left in place.