Contributing

Build from source (contributors)¶

Building AKA from source instead of installing the published plugin — useful if you're developing AKA itself. This workflow uses the Claude Code terminal CLI; there's no equivalent for Desktop, since it depends on shell access.

Prerequisites: Node.js 26+ and pnpm 10+, Claude Code installed and signed in.

1. Clone and install¶

git clone https://github.com/akasecurity/ai-tc
cd ai-tc
pnpm setup   # pnpm install + lefthook hooks
pnpm --filter @akasecurity/cli build

2. Set up your local AKA home¶

pnpm --filter @akasecurity/cli exec aka init

This creates ~/.aka/settings/settings.json (your preferences) and ~/.aka/data/aka.db (the local SQLite store), seeded with default detection policies.

3. Load the plugin for a session¶

pnpm turbo run build --filter=@akasecurity/plugin-claude-code
claude --plugin-dir ./apps/plugin-claude-code

4. Test the plugin hook¶

Run the hook script directly with a sample payload — a fake credential in the same shape a real secrets rule would match — to verify it works:

echo '{"prompt":"here is a test credential: see rules/secrets fixtures for the exact shape"}' \
  | node apps/plugin-claude-code/scripts/user-prompt-submit.js
# → {"decision":"block","reason":"AKA blocked this prompt — flagged secrets/aws-access-key ..."}

For a concrete example payload, see the fixtures in rules/secrets/.

5. Open the dashboard¶

pnpm --filter @akasecurity/cli exec aka dashboard

Navigate to http://localhost:4319/security to see the Events page. The finding from step 4 should appear once you've triggered it from inside a real Claude Code session (the direct hook invocation above only tests the script).