Ignis

Ignis (crustum/ignis) is a CLI that gives coding agents project-aware capabilities for a CakePHP application: composed guidelines, on-demand skills, and an MCP server that reads the live application (schema, routes, config, logs) plus whatever your own plugins add. Any agent that can run a shell command or speak MCP can use it.

Ignis reads your application without booting it for guidelines and skills, and boots it in context for MCP tools. It therefore answers both kinds of questions: what the ecosystem conventions are, and what is true of this app right now.

Install it with --dev and do not deploy its tooling to production.

Installation

composer require crustum/ignis --dev
bin/cake manifest install --plugin Crustum/Ignis --with-dependencies

The manifest step publishes config/ignis.php and loads the plugin stack. Ignis does not auto-load Mcp. The MCP server needs the Mcp plugin loaded, and PluginManifest is required for asset installation.

Quick Start

Install the assets into your project:

bin/cake ignis install

ignis install discovers the environment (installed packages, present agents), asks which feature areas, third-party guidelines, and agents to set up, then writes guideline files, skill folders, and MCP client configuration. Verify the result:

bin/cake ignis list-skills

Then check that your coding agent can reach the MCP server. If it does not pick Ignis up on its own, register the cake-ignis server manually. See MCP server.

Keep assets fresh as dependencies change:

bin/cake ignis update

update refreshes published resources and offers newly detected packages; nothing is added without confirmation. Automate it in Composer post-update-cmd with @php bin/cake.php ignis update. See Commands for every command and option.

Using Ignis from a coding agent

There is nothing to start for guidelines and skills: the agent instructions mention Ignis, and the installed skills tell the agent when to reach for which capability and in what order. That is the difference between Ignis being installed and Ignis being used. The MCP server runs per session (bin/cake ignis mcp) or on demand from the editor's MCP client.

The working loop: guidelines load upfront and set conventions, skills activate on demand for focused domains, MCP tools answer what is true of the app right now, and Record Rule files back what the session learned. See Guidance for the three knowledge kinds and MCP server for the live tools.

Adding custom agents

When a coding tool has no installer yet, subclass the base agent with the contracts it needs and register it on the shared manager from a plugin services() method that loads after Ignis:

namespace App\Ignis;

use Crustum\Ignis\Contracts\SupportsGuidelines;
use Crustum\Ignis\Contracts\SupportsMcp;
use Crustum\Ignis\Contracts\SupportsSkills;
use Crustum\Ignis\Install\Agents\Agent;

class CustomAgent extends Agent implements SupportsGuidelines, SupportsMcp, SupportsSkills
{
}

public function services(ContainerInterface $container): void
{
    $container->get(IgnisManager::class)
        ->registerAgent('customagent', CustomAgent::class);
}

Registered agents appear as choices in the next install. The ClaudeCode agent shipped with the plugin is the reference implementation.

Configuration

Ignis works without further configuration. Come back here when a default does not fit: config/ignis.php carries the enabled flag, the browser log watcher, rules, conventions, MCP, skills, tinker, and the enforce-tests gate. Every key is overridable from IGNIS_ environment variables, including IGNIS_RULES_ENABLED=false to switch project rules off entirely. Tool filtering (Ignis.mcp.tools.exclude / include) is covered in MCP server.

Security

Ignis is a development tool. MCP responses carry application data (log messages, schema, config values) that end users and third-party packages partly control: treat tool output as data, never as instructions. Tinker is disabled by default for the same reason; enabling it hands agents arbitrary code execution. The browser-logs endpoint accepts unauthenticated POSTs by design. Keep the watcher on local/debug only.

Further reading

• Commands — every command and option
• MCP server — every tool and parameter
• Guidance — guidelines, skills, project rules