Forge Orchestrator

forge-orchestrator

Stage: Alpha. The Forge plugin and orchestrator are in alpha. On 2026-10-15 (UTC) a separate NXTG.AI team (product-oracle) ran the pre-registered core-job test on a clean install of the plugin (v3.14.0) and the orchestrator (forge 1.7.0). The test passed; each repeated check passed 3 of 3 (run 7). The evidence is attached to the forge-plugin v3.14.0 release. No SLA; interfaces may change without notice.

Orchestration for Claude Code on shared repos, with Codex CLI and Antigravity CLI (`agy`) as task runners — single Rust binary, zero deps.

Multi-agent inside a single tool works fine. Claude Code runs 20 subagents and they stay aligned because the tool manages that orchestration internally. The problem is multi-tool: several AI coding tools on the same repo with no shared state. That's what the orchestrator solves: today for Claude Code, with Codex CLI and Antigravity CLI (agy) as task runners. The orchestrator launches agy as a task runner; Forge makes no other claim about agy.

It adds file locking, knowledge capture, task planning, drift detection, and multi-tool orchestration to your development workflow. The tools read from and write to a single state directory. A 12-tool MCP server exposes the full orchestration state to any connected AI client, and can create, claim and complete tasks.

The orchestrator exists because I ran two AI tools on the same codebase and watched them fail in the same ways human teams fail. Claude refactored a module. Codex updated tests against the pre-refactor interface. Both saved. Tests failed. Neither tool knew the other existed. I'd spent 23 years watching this exact scenario with talented human teams. The solution was always the same: orchestration infrastructure.

Install

curl -fsSL https://forge.nxtg.ai/install.sh | sh

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" # this shell only; new shells already have it forge init

The installer installs Forge v1.8.0, the pinned release, not whichever release is newest. It puts forge in ~/.local/bin (change it with FORGE_INSTALL_DIR) and adds that directory to your PATH with one guarded line in ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc and, if you have zsh, ~/.zshenv. Set FORGE_NO_MODIFY_PATH=1 to leave your shell files alone.

If the claude CLI is on your PATH, the installer then adds forge's MCP tools to Claude Code, using only that CLI: it adds and refreshes the nxtg-forge marketplace (nxtg-ai/forge-plugin), updates nxtg-forge@nxtg-forge if you already have it, and installs the companion plugin nxtg-forge-orchestrator@nxtg-forge. It prints one line per change and changes no Claude configuration any other way. Without claude, or if a step fails, it prints the commands for you to run and still exits 0. Set FORGE_NO_CLAUDE_PLUGIN=1 to skip it.

Single binary. No runtime dependencies.

Connect Codex CLI to the MCP server

Register the orchestrator's MCP server with Codex CLI, then check that Codex lists it:

codex mcp add forge -- forge mcp

codex mcp list

This writes the entry to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.forge]

command = "forge" args = ["mcp"]

The server works on the project in the directory it starts in. To pin one project, bind it when you register: codex mcp add forge --env FORGE_PROJECT_ROOT=/path/to/project -- forge mcp. Checked with codex-cli 0.162.1: codex mcp list shows forge enabled over stdio, and the server answers tools/list with its 12 tools. A tool call made through this registration from inside a Codex session has not been measured.

Quick Demo

Four commands from zero to task board:

# 1. Initialize — creates .forge/ directory with state, event log, knowledge base

forge init

2. Configure the AI brain — choose 'openai' (needs API key) or 'rule-based' (free)

forge config brain openai

3. Generate tasks — reads your SPEC.md or README, creates dependency-aware task graph

forge plan --generate

4. See the result — task board with assignments, dependencies, and project health

forge status

From here you can:

• forge run — execute tasks headlessly (autonomous mode, great for CI)
• forge dashboard --pty — launch the TUI dashboard with interactive agent panes

Past Result: Stargate Mode (before v1.6.1)

From a 94-line specification, an earlier version of the orchestrator coordinated three AI coding tools to build a complete CLI toolkit. That run drove the retired Gemini CLI; since v1.6.1 the adapter launches Antigravity CLI (agy) instead, and the run has not been re-measured.

SPEC.md (94 lines) → forge plan --generate → 15 tasks

Claude Code: 6 design tasks → completed Codex CLI: 6 implementation → completed Gemini CLI: 3 test/doc tasks → completed (pre-1.6.1 adapter)

Result: 5,306 lines of working code 10 auto-committed git entries 13 Python files (CLI + tests) Zero file conflicts

Three companies. Three tools. One orchestrator. One command:

forge dashboard --pty

What You Get

Key Commands

forge init                     # Initialize Forge in a project

forge plan --generate # Generate task plan from spec forge dashboard # Live TUI dashboard forge dashboard --pty # TUI with interactive agent panes (Stargate) forge run # Headless autonomous mode forge status # Current state summary forge verify # Create verify tasks for completed build tasks forge uat # Interactive UAT test runner forge ship # Ship phase: changelog, archive, clean state for the next cycle

Every command and its options, as the binary prints them. CI regenerates this block from forge --help and fails if it differs:

$ forge --help

Forge orchestrates Claude Code on shared repos, with Codex CLI and Antigravity CLI (agy) as task runners: file locking, knowledge capture and a shared task board.

Usage: forge [OPTIONS]

Commands: init Initialize Forge in a project — scaffold .forge/, detect AI tools plan Show or generate the master plan status Show orchestration status — task board, agent activity, governance run Execute tasks headlessly. Omit --task/--agent for autonomous parallel mode start Start autonomous orchestration — run all tasks with auto-claim/complete sync Reconcile state — update summaries, render adapter configs, check governance mcp Start the MCP server (stdio transport) — AI tools connect to query/update state dashboard Live TUI dashboard — task board, agent output, event log doctor Aggregate health verdict — quality, release debt, and drift in one fail-closed exit code pod Declarative tmux pod management — start, stop, and recover multi-pane agent pods verify Generate verify subtasks for completed build tasks uat Interactive UAT — describe issues naturally, capture findings ship Ship phase — generate changelog, archive artifacts, clean state for next cycle uninstall Uninstall Forge — remove binary and optionally project data config Get or set configuration values help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options: --project Path to the project root (defaults to current directory)

[default: .]

-h, --help Print help (see a summary with '-h')

-V, --version Print version

<!-- forge-help:end -->

Use as a library

Since v1.8.0, the crate also builds a library, forge_orchestrator, for tools that read or write a project's .forge/ directory without running forge. Its documented surface is forge_orchestrator::core: project state and file locks, tasks, the event log, the knowledge base and the plan. The rest of the crate is the binary's internals, hidden from the docs. Like the binary, the library is alpha, and its API may change.

[dependencies]

forge-orchestrator = "1.8" # the first version with the library

use forge_orchestrator::core::task::{Task, TaskManager};

let tasks = TaskManager::new(".forge"); tasks.create_task(&Task::new("T-001", "Parse the config", "Read forge.toml into Config"))?; for task in tasks.list_tasks()? { println!("{} {:?} {}", task.id, task.status, task.title); }

API docs: https://docs.rs/forge-orchestrator. To build them locally: cargo doc --open in a checkout.

Runnable examples, run in CI against the built binary:

• examples/task_board.rs: print a project's task board from .forge/.
• examples/capture_knowledge.rs: capture a decision and list that category.
• examples/mcp_stdio.rs: talk to forge mcp as an MCP client: initialize, list the 12 tools, create a task.

cargo build && cargo run --example mcp_stdio -- target/debug/forge /tmp/demo

cargo run --example task_board -- /tmp/demo

Architecture

The orchestrator holds Forge's shared state: tasks, file locks, knowledge and the event log. The plugin (L1: Vibe Coder) adds Claude Code commands, skills and hooks, and its guard hooks run inside Claude Code. The UI (L3: Ship Lord) is a separate React dashboard.

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐

│ forge-orchestrator │ │ (Rust) │ │ │ │ File locking · Task planning │ │ Knowledge · Governance · MCP │ │ Multi-tool adapters │ │ │ │ Shared state lives here. │ │ Guard hooks live in forge-plugin. │ └───────────┬──────────────────┬───────┘ │ │ ┌──