Installing artifacts through the MCP server

The OpenKata MCP server, the dojo, serves skills, rules and profiles to any agent that supports MCP. An install copies the files into your project. After that the project works without the server, and you go back to it only to install something new or to update.

Connect your agent

Add the server URL to your agent's MCP configuration:

https://openkata.dev/mcp

There is nothing to install and no local runtime. In Claude Code, for example, add this to .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openkata": {
      "url": "https://openkata.dev/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Other agents use the same URL in their own config file. The Getting Started page lists the file for each client.

The tools

The server has nine tools, three for each artifact type.

Tool	Arguments	Returns
`list_skills`, `list_rules`, `list_profiles`	`tag` (optional)	Every artifact of that type
`install_skill`, `install_rule`, `install_profile`	`skill`, `rule` or `profile`; optional `version`	The files and a manifest
`skill_versions`, `rule_versions`, `profile_versions`	`skill`, `rule` or `profile` (required)	Every available version

You rarely call them yourself. You ask your agent in plain language, and it picks the tool.

List what is available

A list call returns the artifacts sorted by name. Each entry has its name, latest version, description, tags and download count.

Pass a tag to narrow the list. The tags are the ones in an artifact's metadata, such as category:conventions or tool:git, and the filter must match one tag exactly. Asking for category alone matches nothing.

For example: "List the OpenKata rules tagged category:conventions."

Install an artifact

Ask your agent to install by name: "Install the grill-me skill from OpenKata." The agent calls install_skill and gets back a JSON document with the name, the version, a manifest and the files. It then writes the files into your project:

Type	Standard location (Kiro and others)	Claude Code
Skills	`.agents/skills/<name>/`	`.claude/skills/<name>/`
Rules	`.agents/rules/<name>/`	`.claude/rules/<name>/`
Profiles	`.agents/profiles/<name>/`	`.claude/profiles/<name>/`

The server does not detect your client. Its tool descriptions name both locations and the agent writes to the one its client uses. If your project already follows one convention, tell the agent to use it.

The manifest is a record of what was installed: the artifact name, the version, the source (github.com/tovrleaf/openkata) and a SHA-256 checksum for every installed file. The server returns it as a separate field. The tool's description presents it as the artifact's .openkata-manifest.json, for the agent to save next to the files. An archive download contains the file itself.

An install leaves out the files that only matter to the project that maintains the artifact: the changelog, the rationale, the acknowledgments file (references/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md), the evals/ folder and the tessl metadata.

Choose a version

An install gets the latest version unless you ask for another one. To pin one, name it in the request: "Install grill-me at version 1.0.1." To see what exists, ask for the versions of an artifact; the version tools list them from oldest to newest.

If the name or the version does not exist, the tool returns an error that says which one was not found, for example skill "x" not found.

Download instead

If you work offline, or your agent has no MCP support, each artifact page on the site links a .tar.gz archive. Extract it into the same folders as above. It holds the same files as an MCP install. Browse the skills, rules and profiles.

Each MCP install and each archive download counts as a download in the public download count shown in the catalog.