Claude

Bridge Codex CLI, Cursor, OpenCode, or another MCP client with Anthropic's Claude Code CLI. This is the reverse collaboration path: Claude can ask Codex through ask-codex-mcp, while Codex can ask Claude through @anton-lykhoyda/ask-claude-mcp.

Best for: getting an independent Claude review while Codex or another model is your primary agent. Not for: use from inside Claude Code itself. Claude Code rejects nested Claude sessions, so the unified orchestrator suppresses this provider when Claude Code is the MCP host.

Installation

Run in your terminal:

codex mcp add claude -- npx -y @anton-lykhoyda/ask-claude-mcp

Or install globally:

npm install -g @anton-lykhoyda/ask-claude-mcp

Prerequisites

1. Node.js v20.0.0 or higher
2. Claude Code CLI installed, on PATH, and authenticated

Tools

Tool	Purpose
ask-claude	Send a review or analysis prompt to Claude. Supports model, native sessionId, and validated relative includeDirs
get-usage-stats	Per-session token totals, durations, and model breakdowns. In-memory
ping	Verify the MCP server and Claude Code CLI installation

ask-claude returns human-readable text plus a structured AskResponse containing the response, actual model, native Claude session ID, and token usage when reported by the CLI.

Models

• Default: opus, a stable Claude Code alias for the latest Opus model
• Fallback: sonnet, passed through Claude Code's native --fallback-model behavior
• Overrides: ASK_CLAUDE_MODEL, ASK_CLAUDE_FALLBACK_MODEL, or the optional per-call model parameter

Read-only boundary

The provider invokes Claude with:

• --safe-mode, disabling project customizations, hooks, plugins, MCP servers, and auto-memory
• --tools Read,Glob,Grep, excluding Bash, Edit, Write, and external tools
• --permission-mode dontAsk, preventing a headless permission prompt from hanging the MCP call
• stdin prompt delivery, avoiding command-line length limits and keeping prompt content out of process arguments

Claude can inspect the current workspace and validated relative includeDirs, but the calling MCP client remains responsible for edits.

Native sessions

The JSON response includes Claude's session_id. Pass it back as sessionId on a later call to continue the same conversation through claude --resume without replaying the transcript.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Purpose
ASK_CLAUDE_MODEL	opus	Default Claude alias or full model name
ASK_CLAUDE_FALLBACK_MODEL	sonnet	Native fallback model
ASK_CLAUDE_TIMEOUT_MS	600000	Provider process timeout in milliseconds
GMCPT_TIMEOUT_MS	—	Global timeout fallback

npm

• Package: @anton-lykhoyda/ask-claude-mcp
• Binary: ask-claude-mcp