Kabo — creator research skills for Claude Code and Codex

[!IMPORTANT]
This repository is archived and no longer maintained. The Kabo plugin now lives at kabo-sh/kabo-mcp-plugin. To install or update, follow kabo.sh/install. The kabo-alpha plugin installed from this repository is a legacy version and will be phased out.

Website · Install · Free creator tools · Report an issue

Kabo is an AI partner for creators. This repository installs the Kabo plugin into Claude Code or Codex: ask a question in plain language and get a report built from public channel, account, and video data, with sources, dates, and limits stated.

Free to use. Every Kabo account gets a free daily allowance.

See it in action

The daily TikTok sound board — the board Kabo's TikTok trend research reads: how many videos use each sound and how many were added today. Captured from kabo.sh on 2026-10-09.	Breakouts against the channel's own baseline — a recorded views trend, and videos ranked by how far they beat the channel's typical video of the same format. Captured from kabo.sh/creators on 2026-10-09.
Outliers in the Kabo workspace — each video's views as a multiple of its creator's recent median, filterable by platform, format, and time window. Kabo runs in the browser too; this plugin brings its research into Claude Code and Codex. Captured from the Kabo web workspace on 2026-10-09.

What you can do

New here? Run /kabo-start: a short questionnaire, one real analysis of your own account, a 90-day plan, and your first piece of content.

Example requests

/kabo-analyze why has https://youtube.com/@channel been growing lately?
/kabo-analyze which TikTok sounds are rising fastest today?
/kabo-analyze break down the hook of this Reel: <public link>
/kabo-analyze find TikTok accounts in my niche I should study
/kabo-analyze do a deep review of @handle on Instagram — watch the videos
/kabo-analyze my Instagram reach dropped this month — what changed?
/kabo-analyze how far is my channel from YouTube monetization?
/kabo-analyze what should I charge for this sponsorship brief? <paste brief>

How it works

1. You ask in plain language. Kabo picks the matching research skill and shows it to you before anything runs.
2. Kabo fetches the public data. Data is collected on Kabo's servers, so there are no API keys to set up. Every skill is signed by the platform and verified on your machine before it executes.
3. You get a report with its evidence. Findings come with source links, the time window, the sample size, and what could not be measured.

What Kabo does not do:

• It does not publish for you. It analyzes, plans, and drafts; posting stays with you.
• It does not guess private metrics. Click-through rate, retention, revenue, and Insights are never inferred from public views or likes.
• It does not promise virality. When the evidence is thin, the report says so.

How Kabo compares

We make Kabo, so read this as our view. Every cell comes from each product's own public pages, checked on 2026-10-09. If something has changed, please open an issue.

Pick vidIQ or TubeBuddy if you mostly need your own YouTube channel's private analytics, or tools that make media and edit your channel for you. Pick Kabo if you want research across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok from public data, delivered as reports that show their sources, time window, and sample size, inside the coding agent you already use.

Quick start

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kabo-sh/kabo-plugins/main/install.sh | bash

The installer finds Claude Code and/or Codex on your machine, installs the plugin, and offers to sign you in to Kabo right away. Then start a new session and run /kabo-start.

Supported hosts

The one-line installer above covers both hosts. The full manual steps, including the Claude Code enable step and the Codex hook trust step, are under Installation details.

You also need a Kabo account. If you don't have one, continuing with Google during sign-in creates it.

Prefer to read the script first? Run it with --dry-run, or follow the manual steps under Installation details.

Privacy

Creator research data is fetched by Kabo's servers. Usage telemetry is limited to event-level metadata — which skill ran and whether it succeeded; no prompt, tool, or skill-output content is collected. On Claude Code, the sign-in credential is stored only in ~/.kabo/credentials.json (mode 0600) and can be removed with /kabo-logout. Details are in Signing in.

More from Kabo

• Free creator tools — calculators, checkers, and generators for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. No account needed.
• Kabo in the browser — the same research and drafting without a coding agent.
• Kabo for iPhone and Android — pre-publish video feedback.

Installation details

One command, either host:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kabo-sh/kabo-plugins/main/install.sh | bash

It reports which hosts it found on this machine and lets you pick one or both — Claude Code and Codex install in the same run. It never installs a host for you, never uses sudo, and never reads or writes a credential. After installing the Claude plugin it offers to start the plugin's own terminal sign-in (kabo-auth login, the same RFC 8628 device flow /kabo-login runs) right there: say yes, confirm the code, and it immediately makes one real request to the MCP endpoint with the credential just written — so you learn whether it works there and then, rather than at the first 401 inside a session. Say yes if you can: signing in before the first session is the one order in which no session ever shows kabo as "needs authentication" — a session that starts before the sign-in cannot pick the credential up and has to be replaced by a new one afterwards (see "Signing in"). Decline, and signing in stays a separate step it prints at the end. It also looks for a pre-plugin direct claude mcp add kabo registration of the same endpoint — a leftover that now duplicates the bundled server — and offers to remove it, never automatically. On the Codex side it offers the host's browser OAuth in the same run.

If you would rather not pipe a script into a shell unseen:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kabo-sh/kabo-plugins/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --dry-run
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kabo-sh/kabo-plugins/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --client claude,codex

Already cloned this repo? Skip the network: ./install.sh --repo /path/to/kabo-plugins.

Upgrading, or repairing a broken install

Run the same one-line command again. For Claude Code, it refreshes the marketplace clone and runs claude plugin update, and if the host answers Plugin "kabo-alpha" not found — the plugin is installed but the marketplace it came from can no longer be resolved — it re-registers the marketplace from GitHub and reinstalls the plugin. Your Claude sign-in is kept: the credential lives under ~/.kabo, which the installer never touches.

For an existing Git marketplace that follows this repository's main, the manual update commands are:

# Claude Code
claude plugin marketplace update kabo-plugins
claude plugin update kabo-alpha@kabo-plugins --scope user

# Codex
codex plugin marketplace upgrade kabo-plugins-codex --json
codex plugin add kabo-alpha@kabo-plugins-codex --json

Run only the pair for the host you use, and stop if the marketplace refresh fails: updating against a stale snapshot can report the old version as the latest. Restart that host, start a new session, then run claude plugin list --json or codex plugin list --json and confirm that kabo-alpha has the intended version and enabled: true. A successful command alone is not proof of an upgrade.

The Claude command above explicitly targets the user installation with --scope user. Without that flag, versions before 2.1.281 default to user; newer versions select the most specific installed scope for the current project (scope selection). For a project or local installation, run it from the relevant project with --scope project or --scope local, matching the installation shown by claude plugin list --json. For a managed installation, follow your organization's administrator-managed update policy.

A marketplace pinned to a tag or commit stays pinned when refreshed; inspect that source before deciding to move it to main. For a local-path marketplace, its maintainer must first update the local checkout while preserving local changes; a Git marketplace refresh does not update that directory. Do not remove/re-add a marketplace, clear Skill caches, or sign out as a routine upgrade step.

Registry Skill updates are separate from Plugin updates. If your installed Plugin already meets the requested Skill's minimum version, a Registry catalog change alone does not require reinstalling the Plugin. First-time installation instructions follow.

Claude Code

Requires Claude Code 2.1.195 or newer. The bundled MCP server supplies its own credential through a headersHelper, and ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} inside that setting is only interpolated from 2.1.195 on. An older host runs the literal path, the helper never starts, and every request fails with a 401. The host then falls back to its own OAuth discovery, which can even complete — but what it leaves behind is a host-held token that this plugin's sign-in, logout, and telemetry model does not manage. The supported path is the /kabo-login device flow, and that needs 2.1.195. Upgrade before installing.

claude plugin marketplace add kabo-sh/kabo-plugins
claude plugin install kabo-alpha@kabo-plugins
claude plugin enable kabo-alpha

The enable step is not optional: claude plugin install leaves the plugin disabled by default, and a disabled plugin looks exactly like one that installed cleanly and does nothing.

Inside a session, /plugin marketplace add kabo-sh/kabo-plugins does the same thing as the first line.

Codex

Requires Node.js 20 or later, and a Codex build that has the codex plugin subcommand (codex plugin --help answers). If that subcommand is missing, the host has no plugin install surface at all.

codex plugin marketplace add kabo-sh/kabo-plugins
codex plugin add kabo-alpha@kabo-plugins-codex

Two things differ from the Claude side, and neither is cosmetic:

• The marketplace name is kabo-plugins-codex, not kabo-plugins. The two hosts read two different manifests (.agents/plugins/marketplace.json and .claude-plugin/marketplace.json), so the names have to be distinct even though both publish the same plugin name, kabo-alpha.
• There is no enable step, but there is a trust step. Installing a plugin does not trust its hooks. Review plugins/codex/kabo-alpha/hooks/hooks.json and the scripts/hooks/ files it invokes — they are what reports usage — then trust them explicitly in the host and restart Codex.

From a local clone

Either host takes a path in place of the slug:

claude plugin marketplace add /absolute/path/to/kabo-plugins
codex plugin marketplace add /absolute/path/to/kabo-plugins

Signing in

However you installed it, authorization is a separate step, and the two hosts do it differently.

Claude Code. The shortest path is the installer itself: it offers to start the sign-in right after installing, so the whole onboarding is install → confirm the code → start a session — done. Otherwise, open a session and run /kabo-login: the terminal prints a URL and an 8-character code, and confirming that code in a browser tab — on any device — completes an RFC 8628 device flow. Then start a new session: the one you signed in from connected to Kabo before the credential existed and will not pick it up — the host asks the plugin for the credential once, when it connects the server, and does not ask again in that session. If that old session shows the host's own "Authenticate" prompt for kabo, ignore it; the plugin's sign-in is the only supported path, and a host-held token is one /kabo-logout cannot revoke.

Your first session. A successful /kabo-login hands off to /kabo-start: a short questionnaire, one real analysis of your own account, and a 90-day plan. Run /kabo-start again whenever you like — it reads what is already on file and offers to pick up where you stopped or start over.

Which skills you receive. /kabo-channel ($kabo-channel on Codex) shows the Skill Registry channel your account is on. Every account can select Production; an account the platform has granted Internal access can select either and defaults to Internal. Switching channels does not sign you in again and does not change the grant — the server is the sole authority on who has one.

Signing in from inside a running session works too. If Kabo is still unavailable afterwards, start a new session — that path works on every host (terminal, IDE extension, desktop app), and on the desktop app it is the only one.

In the CLI you can skip the restart: run /mcp reconnect plugin:kabo-alpha:kabo (Claude Code CLI 2.1.205 or newer; on an older CLI /reload-plugins also reconnects plugin servers). The full name matters: the host registers the bundled server as plugin:kabo-alpha:kabo, and a reconnect naming only kabo is answered with "There's no MCP server named ...". The host re-runs the credential helper on every connection — session start, reconnect, and once more when a tool call answers 401/403 — so a reconnect is all it takes for the fresh credential to be picked up. CLIs older than 2.1.205 lack the reconnect subcommand but still have /reload-plugins; the desktop app has neither, which is why a new session is the advice that leads this section.

Authorization happens once per machine. The renewable credential is written to ~/.kabo/credentials.json with mode 0600, and bin/kabo-headers is the only thing that reads it — the host runs that helper once per MCP request (through bin/kabo-headers.sh, a POSIX sh shim whose only job is finding a node binary: $KABO_NODE, then the node recorded at sign-in in ~/.kabo/node-path, then PATH and the usual install locations; on native Windows without a POSIX sh, node must be on the host PATH) and merges its single line of stdout into the request headers. The desktop app is launched without your shell PATH, which is why the sign-in records that node at all; if the app still reports Kabo as unavailable, set KABO_NODE in its environment. The credential is bound to the kabo-cli client and to Kabo's MCP resource, expires in 30 days, rotates on every renewal, and is deleted from this machine by /kabo-logout — a local-only sign-out that leaves other devices alone. /kabo-revoke is the account-wide one: it revokes the account's grants on every device, then logs this machine out too. Beyond the MCP server, the plugin only reaches three public read-only endpoints (GET /api/sync, GET /api/meta-guidance, GET /api/public-key), with no parameters, no identity, and no local data sent upstream.

Codex. Authorization uses the host's own OAuth. The recommended compatibility form is codex mcp login kabo --scopes openid,offline_access,account:read,registry,telemetry,data; current deployments also support bare codex mcp login kabo, while the explicit form pins the Kabo permissions this plugin needs across host versions. Complete the authorization in the browser. The host holds and renews the token; no Kabo credential is stored on your machine. Only the Claude variant signs in from the terminal.

For the authorization model in full, the data path, and the privacy boundary, see the plugin READMEs: Claude Code · Codex.

Directory layout

The -alpha suffix is meant literally: this is an early release, and interfaces may still change between versions.

License

The code in this repository is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The license covers this client only: the research skills Kabo signs and delivers at run time, and the Kabo service and data behind them, are not part of this repository. As section 6 of the license states, it grants no rights to the Kabo name or logo.

Codex skill-install diagnostics

The download installation hook writes local metadata to
~/.kabo/codex/logs/skill-install.jsonl (or $KABO_CODEX_DATA/logs/skill-install.jsonl).
Each invocation records started, input shape/byte count, verification exit status and a
known verification failure category, cache installation, and finished with its outcome.
Records share a random invocation ID and include timestamps and elapsed milliseconds.
No tool payload, package body, credentials, session ID, or raw verifier stderr is logged.
The file is private (0600); it rotates at 1 MiB, keeping one previous .1 file.
These diagnostic records are local only and are not uploaded as telemetry.

The same records use the KABO_SKILL_INSTALL prefix on stderr so the host can capture them.
If the log directory cannot be written, stderr includes log_write_failed and an error code.
A started without finished suggests interruption or a still-running hook; inspect the host
logs and elapsed time. No records does not establish a permissions failure: Codex may not
have started the hook, may have failed to start Node, or may not capture stderr. Check plugin
loading, hook trust, the PostToolUse matcher and Codex host logs. A script cannot record an
invocation that the host never starts. Signature and revocation verification remain mandatory.

skill-unpack also records local metadata in <data root>/logs/skill-unpack.jsonl
on Codex, whether called by a hook, a file installer, or a PTY bridge. It records startup,
input reading, package validation, file writing, verification and exit status. unpacked_not_verified
is not verified success. Logs rotate at 1 MiB with one backup, use private permissions, and
exclude payloads, credentials and raw errors. Stderr uses KABO_SKILL_UNPACK as a fallback.
An approval refusal before startup or before package delivery is a host transport failure:
there may be no unpack log, or only startup/input-waiting records. Check the Codex tool refusal.

When no hook receipt arrives, the agent must notify the user to check Kabo hook trust before
trying the existing PTY fallback. Missing receipts alone do not prove trust is disabled.
Do not retry rejected transfers to evade approval or promise that broader filesystem access
will fix an automatic-review refusal. The plugin never enables trust itself.

Before a cold download, Codex guidance now asks the agent to inspect Kabo hook state itself.
Explicitly disabled/untrusted hooks trigger a consent question explaining their purpose;
the agent waits before changing trust or attempting a fallback. Read only relevant Kabo
configuration fields, never dump the complete host configuration. An existing trusted_hash
does not prove that it matches the currently installed hook. Unknown state is reported as
unknown. After approval use supported host controls, or hand the setting change to the user;
never manufacture trust hashes. The next real hook receipt/log verifies effective execution.
PTY remains available if the user chooses it instead.