Quickstart

Install Lineman in your Claude Code session and see real token savings on your first task. Five steps, about a minute. If you get stuck on any of them, email support@lineman.io — replies are quick during the beta.

  1. Create your account

    Browser

    Sign up at lineman.io. Google or Microsoft sign-in works — no credit card needed during the beta.

    https://lineman.io/signup

  2. Add the Lineman marketplace

    Claude Code

    Inside any Claude Code session, run this slash command. It registers the marketplace that hosts the Lineman plugin.

    /plugin marketplace add lineman-io/lineman-mono

  3. Install + reload the plugin

    Claude Code

    The plugin bundles the MCP server, lifecycle hooks, and routing skill as a single unit. Reload picks it up in your current session.

    /plugin install lineman@lineman
/reload-plugins

  4. Sign in from the shell

    Shell

    Opens a browser for OAuth sign-in, writes your token to ~/.lineman/config.json. Required once per machine — Claude Code sessions on this machine all share it.

    npx -p @lineman-io/mcp lineman-mcp auth

  5. Try it on a real task

    Shell

    Ask Claude Code anything that reads a large file, runs tests, or scans logs. Lineman auto-routes the heavy work and shows the savings inline.

    claude "summarise the last 5 commits and explain the biggest change"

What success looks like

After step 5 runs, the Claude Code statusline shows a compact savings line every time Lineman compresses a tool result. Compression is automatic — there's no extra prompt to write.

[Lineman] saved 87% on Bash(git log --stat -5)
[Lineman] saved 64% on Read(apps/lineman/data-api/src/server.ts)
[Lineman] saved 91% on Bash(pnpm test apps/lineman/mcp)

The percentage is the share of tokens Lineman removed from the tool result before it reached Claude — bigger files and longer outputs save more.

If something doesn't work

  • No savings lines after step 5?

    Make sure Claude Code was restarted after step 3 — hooks only load at session start. Then try a task with a large output (a multi-file git log, a test run, a long grep). Small outputs deliberately pass through uncompressed.

  • Sign-in browser didn't open?

    lineman-mcp auth prints the URL to your terminal as a fallback — open it manually in any browser. The token is written to ~/.lineman/config.json when sign-in finishes.

  • Want to check your plan or usage?

    The dashboard shows token usage, your current tier, and lets you upgrade. Tier limits and pricing are on the pricing page.

Last updated: May 2026