babysitter

Babysitter Plugin for Claude Code

Babysitter is the Claude Code plugin for SDK-backed orchestration with event-sourced runs, stop-hook continuation, native hook dispatch, and human approval gates.

Status: Public harness plugin surface for Claude Code. Canonical docs home: Package and Plugin Docs Map. This README is the canonical Claude Code plugin contract; use Plugins Overview for repo-level plugin discovery.

Active Orchestration Contract

Claude Code is the canonical hook-driven harness:

• SessionStart prepares baseline session state
• the babysit skill or plugin command surface starts and resumes runs
• Claude performs one orchestration phase per turn
• after each posted effect, the assistant stops and the stop hook decides whether to block or approve exit
• the run finishes only when completionProof is emitted and returned as <promise>...</promise>

Do not document multi-iteration loops inside a single turn.

Active Process-Library Model

Process discovery should prefer:

1. .a5c/processes in the current workspace
2. The SDK-managed active process-library binding returned by babysitter process-library:active --json
3. Other installed skill/plugin roots only as compatibility fallback
4. Reference/bundled content only as last resort

The process library is active-use and layered. Docs should not frame it as a single bundled snapshot or as a team/project-scoped library only.

Task Kinds

Current generated-process guidance:

• prefer agent
• prefer skill when a matching installed skill exists
• allow shell for existing tooling/tests/builds
• use breakpoint for approval gates
• use sleep for time gates

Do not document node as an allowed generated effect kind for current Babysitter processes.

Runtime Ownership

The Claude-facing README should stay on the Claude skill and hook experience. Low-level Babysitter runtime mechanics such as run creation, result posting, binding, and compatibility fallbacks belong in the babysit skill and hook implementation docs, not in this top-level README.

Breakpoints

Interactive breakpoint rules:

• require explicit approve/reject choices
• empty or ambiguous answers are not approval
• rejection is still posted with --status ok and approved: false
• the assistant must not auto-approve breakpoints in interactive mode

Native Hooks

The plugin dispatches native Babysitter hooks from these priority tiers:

1. .a5c/hooks/<hook-type>/
2. ~/.config/babysitter/hooks/<hook-type>/
3. plugins/babysitter/hooks/<hook-type>/

Common hook points:

• on-run-start
• on-iteration-start
• on-iteration-end
• on-task-start
• on-task-complete
• on-breakpoint
• on-run-complete
• on-run-fail

Key Files

• plugins/babysitter/plugin.json
• plugins/babysitter/hooks/
• plugins/babysitter/skills/babysit/SKILL.md
• library/

Installation

Install the Claude Code plugin through the Claude plugin installer or the SDK CLI helper:

claude plugin marketplace add a5c-ai/babysitter
claude plugin install --scope user babysitter@a5c.ai

The SDK helper runs the same published Claude plugin flow:

babysitter harness:install-plugin claude-code

Then restart Claude Code. The installer does not materialize a repo-local plugin copy.

Claude Cowork Installation

Claude Cowork can install this same plugin package without any plugin-structure changes. This repository already includes a Claude marketplace manifest at .claude-plugin/marketplace.json that points at plugins/babysitter/.

Personal install from this repository

1. Open Claude Desktop and switch to the Cowork tab.
2. Click Customize in the left sidebar.
3. Click Browse plugins.
4. Select Personal.
5. Click +, then choose Add marketplace from GitHub.
6. Enter https://github.com/a5c-ai/babysitter.
7. Install Babysitter from the marketplace that Cowork imports from this repo.

After installation, the plugin's skills appear in Cowork when you type / or click +.

Team / Enterprise org-managed install

Organization owners can also distribute Cowork plugins from Organization settings > Plugins.

• Manual marketplace: upload plugin ZIP files in the admin UI.
• GitHub-synced marketplace: connect a private or internal GitHub repo in owner/repo format.

Anthropic's current Cowork docs require organization GitHub-synced marketplaces to use private or internal repositories on github.com, not public repos. If you want to distribute Babysitter org-wide through a GitHub-synced marketplace, use a private/internal fork of this repo or upload the plugin ZIP manually.

If the workspace does not already have an active process-library binding, this command bootstraps the shared global SDK process library automatically:

babysitter process-library:active --json

Quick Start