wolfram-hart

wolfram-hart

A Claude Code plugin that gives Claude a real math engine. Ask a math or science question and Claude translates it to Wolfram Language, runs it through wolframscript, and hands back the result — symbolic answers, inline plots, numerical values, whatever the computation produces. No special syntax needed.

Why bother?

Claude is a language model. It reconstructs answers from pattern matching, not computation. For simple things this is fine. For anything non-trivial, the reconstructed answer can be plausible-sounding and wrong.

Ask Claude (without the plugin) for the determinant of {{2,1,0,1},{3,0,1,2},{1,2,3,0},{0,1,2,3}}. It might say 12. The Wolfram Engine returns −6. Wolfram Language is a symbolic computation system built around mathematical correctness; the plugin routes math questions to it so you get computed answers rather than recalled ones.

What it covers

Symbolic algebra, calculus (derivatives, integrals, limits, series), differential equations, linear algebra (eigenvalues, determinants, matrix inverses, SVD), number theory, statistics (distributions, regression), transforms (Fourier, Laplace, Z), optimization, unit conversion, plotting (2D, 3D, parametric, contour), and data export (CSV, JSON, Excel).

How it works

When you ask a math or science question, the plugin kicks in automatically. Claude translates your request into Wolfram Language and runs it through the Wolfram Engine — either on your machine or via Wolfram Cloud. The result comes back as a number, an exact symbolic expression, or an inline plot.

There's a brief pause (2–3 seconds) when the engine starts up. If your question involves multiple related computations, they're batched into one call so you only pay that cost once.

Settings

Per-project settings are stored in .claude/wolfram-hart.local.md. Create one with the /setup command or manually:

---
wolfram_mode: auto
default_timeout: 30
---

Setting	Values	Default	Description
wolfram_mode	auto, local, cloud	auto	Which Wolfram Engine to use
default_timeout	integer (seconds)	30	Computation timeout when not specified

Environment variables (WOLFRAM_MODE, WOLFRAM_TIMEOUT) always override settings. Changes take effect on next session restart.

Prerequisites

Windows: The plugin scripts are bash-only. Use WSL2 with a Linux install of the Wolfram Engine.

You need a free Wolfram ID and one of the two options below. The free Wolfram Engine license covers personal and pre-production use; deploying Wolfram evaluation inside a product for end users requires a commercial license.

Option A — Local Wolfram Engine

Runs entirely on your machine, works offline, no usage limits. About 1 GB to download. Better choice for heavy or repeated work.

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install --cask wolfram-engine

macOS (manual) — Download the installer from https://www.wolfram.com/engine/ and run it.

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

# Download the .deb from https://www.wolfram.com/engine/
sudo dpkg -i WolframEngine_*.deb

Linux (RPM-based)

sudo rpm -i WolframEngine_*.rpm

After installing, activate it once:

wolframscript   # sign in with your Wolfram ID when prompted

No environment variable needed. The plugin searches common install locations automatically (Homebrew ARM and Intel prefixes on macOS, system paths, app bundles, snap) and finds wolframscript wherever it lives.

Option B — Wolfram Cloud

No download, nothing to install locally. Computation runs on Wolfram's servers. Cold starts are slower (5–10 seconds vs. 2–3 for local) and the free tier has monthly usage limits. Fine if you use the plugin occasionally or can't spare 1 GB.

macOS

brew install wolframscript

Linux — Download the standalone binary from https://www.wolfram.com/wolframscript/

Authenticate once:

wolframscript -authenticate

Then set WOLFRAM_MODE=cloud so the plugin skips the local attempt:

export WOLFRAM_MODE=cloud   # add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc

Without this, the plugin defaults to auto, which tries local first. If you have the binary but no local license, that means waiting out the full local timeout before the cloud fallback kicks in. WOLFRAM_MODE=cloud skips it.

Verifying the setup

/wolfram-hart:check

This runs a sanity check on both local and cloud modes, prints version info, and tells you what's working and what isn't. It also recommends whether to set WOLFRAM_MODE.

From a terminal:

wolframscript -code '2+2'            # local — should print 4
wolframscript -cloud -code '2+2'     # cloud — should print 4

Install

Inside Claude Code, run these two commands separately:

Step 1 — add the science-plugins marketplace (one-time setup, skip if already added):