Quickstart

This walkthrough takes you from a terminal agent to a live, identity-gated MCP server. Local development needs no Noodle account; an app that declares customer auth still asks you to use that customer sign-in.

Start with Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor

The fastest path is the Noodle Seed plugin: install it once and your coding agent knows the whole workflow (scaffold, author, validate, run, deploy) from the very first prompt, in any directory.

See the developer plugin guide for Cursor, authentication, the live build-readiness widget, Noodle Cloud inspection, security boundaries, and update or removal steps.

/plugin marketplace add NoodleSeed-com/plugins
/plugin install noodle-seed@noodleseed

Codex reads the same marketplace:

codex plugin marketplace add NoodleSeed-com/plugins
codex plugin add noodle-seed@noodleseed

Cursor users can install from the Cursor Marketplace when listed, or from an administrator-configured team marketplace before listing. Then describe what you want to build, for example "Create a Claude connector for my SaaS". Sign in through OAuth when deployment needs Noodle Cloud; never paste a token into chat.

No plugin yet? Paste this prompt into your coding agent instead:

Use Noodle Seed in this project.

Install or run the Noodle Seed CLI package `@noodleseed/one`. If this is a new project, run `noodle init`. If this is an existing project, run `noodle setup --write` and `noodle agents setup --write` instead of overwriting unrelated files.

Build a Noodle Seed server for: [describe the ChatGPT app, Claude connector, or MCP app for Codex or Claude Code I want].

Rules:
- Author TypeScript with the `@noodleseed/one` SDK.
- Do not hand-write manifest JSON or YAML.
- Do not hard-code secrets. Use `secret("NAME")` and tell me which `noodle secrets set` commands I need.
- Keep the implementation focused in `server.ts` unless the project already has a Noodle Seed layout.
- After every meaningful change, run `noodle validate` and fix the reported errors until validation passes.
- Then run `noodle dev` for local testing.
- When I approve, run `noodle deploy` and show me the MCP endpoint and the `noodle connect` command for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, or Claude Code.

The agent should install or run the CLI, create or reconcile the project, author TypeScript, validate until clean, and start local testing with noodle dev. Approve hosted deploy only when you are ready.

Manual commands

Prefer to drive it yourself? Run the same loop directly.

1. Install the CLI

The CLI package is @noodleseed/one and installs the noodle command (first install only).

npm install -g @noodleseed/one@latest

2. Scaffold a project

noodle init my-app
cd my-app
npm install

noodle init creates the SaaS production starter: portable Core-v2 tools and MCP App UI, federated OIDC placeholders, an explicit context-provider tool, a resource, prompt, caller-scoped state, branding, handoff, embedded assistant, tests, and project-local agent guidance. Managed values are references—no credential value is written to source. Use --template widget, hello, or http-api only when that narrower profile is intentional.

3. Validate

noodle validate compiles your server locally and checks schemas, expressions, and connector references. No account, no network.

noodle validate

4. Run it locally

noodle dev boots an in-process MCP runtime on src/server.ts with hot reload. It always binds loopback. Apps without customer auth stay open locally. Direct/federated OIDC and Firebase apps protect the MCP endpoint and show Sign in to test in Devtools; credentials remain in the local Node process. See customer auth.

noodle dev

If your project already has a .env, matching declared secret("NAME") and variable("NAME") keys work as a read-only local fallback. Scoped .env.noodle values override them; generated projects ignore both files in git.

For a one-shot check without a client, noodle test compiles and runs a loopback MCP smoke:

noodle test --tool greet --args '{"name":"Ada"}'

5. Connect a client

Point any MCP client at the dev endpoint. The CLI can wire up common clients for you:

noodle connect claude-code   # or: codex, cursor, vscode, gemini

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

6. Deploy

When you are ready to share it, sign in and deploy. Hosted deploy uses your default org, the project name as the app, and the prod environment unless you override them.

noodle login
noodle deploy

noodle deploy compiles your server, uploads the portable artifact, and prints a governed, identity-gated MCP URL that works across assistants. Access defaults to owner-only; open it up with --access org-members (or manage it later with noodle access set).

Next steps