Agent Theatre turns a Claude Code session into an animated scene. Your repo becomes a stage — folders are districts, files are buildings, test files are beacons — and the agent is a character who walks to the files it reads, builds on the files it edits, runs tests at the beacons and chases gremlins when they fail. Twenty stages, a cast of twelve, every claim checked: if the agent says it's done but no test has passed since the last edit, a gremlin hides behind it.

Site and playable episodes: https://agenttheatre.dev

Install

cd your-repo
npx agent-theatre hooks install   # once: adds hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json (backup kept)
npx agent-theatre                 # opens the stage for this repo; run Claude Code in another terminal

Node 22+. Works with the Claude Code CLI, desktop app and IDE extensions — anything that runs hooks. Hooks are picked up without restarting Claude Code.

Commands

Command	What it does
`agent-theatre`	Start the local server for the current repo and open the stage (live). `--port <n>`, `--no-open`, `--set <id>`
`agent-theatre replay [session]`	Replay a past Claude Code session of this repo; no argument lists them, `--latest` picks the newest
`agent-theatre changes [session]`	What the agent touched: files read, edited, created and deleted with line counts, reconciled with git. `--md`, `--json`, `--reads`; `--pr` posts it on this branch's pull request with your `gh` login (asks first, `--yes` to skip)
`agent-theatre hooks install`	Add the hooks to `~/.claude/settings.json` (non-destructive, backup at `settings.json.bak-agent-theatre`)
`agent-theatre hooks uninstall`	Remove them, byte-for-byte
`agent-theatre hooks status`	Show whether they are installed

Stage ids: island orbit metropolis harbour observatory greenhouse workshop arcade kingdom outpost snowfield canopy lagoon volcano cloudtop reef bazaar monastery moonbase lanterns. The picker suggests the ones that fit your repo.

MCP

agent-theatre serve runs an MCP server over stdio (tools: open_stage, list_sessions, replay_session, stage_status, what_changed, install_hooks). agent-theatre init registers it with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex and Gemini CLI; init --repo writes the repo-level files instead.

Privacy

Runs entirely on your machine and listens only on 127.0.0.1. Events carry repo-relative paths, line counts, a command's first word and a classified intent — never file contents, prompts, command bodies or search queries. A test in the repo plants marker strings in all of those and asserts zero leaks. The Changes view shows a file's diff only when you open it, read from your disk on 127.0.0.1. At the end of a turn the hook prints a one-line summary of changed paths for Claude Code to show you (AGENT_THEATRE_SUMMARY=0 turns it off); it is never a decision and never context for the agent. Paths outside the repo appear as //ext/<name>; your home directory as ~/. The hook always exits 0 and never blocks a tool call.

What did the agent change?

Open the stage and press Changes: a map of every file the agent touched, by folder, sized by lines changed, coloured new / edited / deleted / read, plus files changed during the session but not by the agent. Time slider, helper filter, click for the diff, copy as Markdown.

VS Code

The same stage inside the editor: the .vsix is attached to every GitHub release.

Library

import { Theatre, scanRepo, repoIdFor, listSessions, installHooks } from "agent-theatre";
const t = new Theatre({ cwd, repoId: repoIdFor(cwd), files: scanRepo(cwd) });
await t.listen(0); // t.url → http://127.0.0.1:<port>/

MIT · source: https://github.com/shreyassaw5394/agent-theatre

Community: https://discord.gg/PPGeQWd7r

Other ways in

Claude Code plugin: /plugin install agent-theatre --marketplace shreyassaw5394/agent-theatre — hooks, a /theatre command and a skill.
Homebrew: brew install shreyassaw5394/tap/agent-theatre

Agent Theatre is a free, non-commercial passion project. MIT licensed; bundled third-party code is listed in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt. It runs locally and sends no telemetry (privacy).