adr-skills

adr-skills is an MCP server for Claude Code that automatically captures development conversations and uses Claude Opus to generate, review, and manage Architecture Decision Records (ADRs).

TL;DR: Install once, and every Claude Code session ends with a structured ADR saved to ~/.adr-mcp/adrs/ — no manual writing required.

What problem does this solve?

Engineering teams make dozens of architectural decisions every week — which database to use, how to handle auth, whether to go monolith or microservices — but rarely write them down. Months later, nobody remembers why Redis was chosen over Memcached, or why the team avoided GraphQL.

adr-skills solves this by turning your existing Claude Code conversations into permanent, searchable ADR documents automatically.

How it works

1. You have a normal development conversation in Claude Code
2. When the session ends, the Stop Hook captures the transcript
3. Claude Opus analyzes the conversation and extracts the architectural decision
4. A structured markdown ADR is saved to ~/.adr-mcp/adrs/ADR-0001-*.md
5. Use review_adr to score quality, link_adrs to map dependencies, check_stale_adrs to surface outdated decisions

Features

• Auto session capture — Stop Hook saves conversations automatically on Claude Code exit; no manual steps
• AI-powered ADR generation — Claude Opus extracts context, decision, and consequences from raw conversation
• AI quality review — Scores ADR completeness 0–100 and flags missing context, unconsidered alternatives, or optimistic consequences
• Duplicate detection — Warns when a new decision overlaps with a past one before saving
• Markdown export — Every ADR exported as ADR-NNNN-slug.md, ready to commit alongside your code
• Status lifecycle — Track decisions through Proposed → Accepted → Deprecated → Superseded
• Dependency graph — Link ADRs with related_to, conflicts_with, depends_on and visualize relationships
• Stale ADR alerts — Surface Accepted decisions older than N months that may need revisiting
• Keyword search — Find past decisions by technology name (e.g. Redis, JWT, PostgreSQL)
• Timeline view — Full decision history per project, correlated with git commits

How is this different from existing ADR tools?

| Tool | Auto-capture from chat | AI generation | Quality review | MCP server | |---|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:| | adr-skills | ✅ | ✅ Claude Opus | ✅ | ✅ | | adr-tools (CLI) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | mcp-adr-analysis-server | ❌ | ✅ OpenRouter | ❌ | ✅ | | claude-historian-mcp | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | | log4brains | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |

No existing tool combines automatic conversation capture with AI-powered ADR generation in a single MCP server. There is an open feature request on the Anthropic repo for native ADR support — adr-skills fills that gap today.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/wooxogh/adr-mcp-setup.git
cd adr-mcp-setup
npm install

Register with Claude Code

claude mcp add adr-skills node /absolute/path/to/adr-mcp-setup/index.js

Environment setup

cp .env.example .env
# Add your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY to .env

Without the API key, generate_adr falls back to keyword-based extraction and review_adr is unavailable. .env is in .gitignore — your key will never be committed.

Enable auto session capture (Stop Hook)

Add to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "Stop": [{
      "matcher": "",
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "node /absolute/path/to/adr-mcp-setup/hook.js"
      }]
    }]
  }
}

Tools (9 total)

| Tool | Description | Requires API key | |---|---|:---:| | save_session | Save a conversation to the database | ❌ | | generate_adr | Auto-generate an ADR from a session | ❌ (AI mode: ✅) | | review_adr | Score ADR quality and get improvement suggestions | ✅ | | update_adr_status | Transition ADR through its lifecycle | ❌ | | link_adrs | Create relationships between ADRs | ❌ | | get_adr_graph | Visualize the ADR dependency graph | ❌ | | check_stale_adrs | Find old Accepted ADRs that need revisiting | ❌ | | search_decisions | Keyword search across all past decisions | ❌ | | get_timeline | Decision history for a project | ❌ |

generate_adr example output

# ADR-1: Adopt Redis as the caching layer

## Status
Accepted

## Context
We needed pub/sub support for real-time notifications.
Memcached only handles simple key-value caching and could not meet this requirement.

## Decision
We adopted Redis as both cache and message broker.
It supports pub/sub, TTL, and persistence, and the team already has operational experience with it.

## Consequences
Real-time features can now be implemented without a separate message broker.
We must account for Redis operational costs and treat it as a potential single point of failure.

review_adr example output

## ADR-1 Review — Score: 62/100

Good context, but decision rationale and risk coverage need work.

### Issues
🔴 [decision] No alternatives were considered before choosing Redis
🟡 [consequences] Risks are mentioned but mitigation strategies are missing

### Suggestions
1. Explicitly document why Memcached was rejected
2. Add a rollback plan if Redis becomes a bottleneck

get_adr_graph example output

## ADR Dependency Graph

### depends on
  ADR-5 "Use JWT for auth"  →  ADR-2 "Adopt Redis as cache"

### conflicts with
  ADR-7 "Move to stateless sessions"  ✕  ADR-2 "Adopt Redis as cache"

FAQ

Q: Do I need an Anthropic API key? No. Without a key, generate_adr uses keyword extraction as a fallback. With a key, Claude Opus produces significantly more accurate ADRs and review_adr becomes available.

Q: Where are ADRs stored? Two places: SQLite database at ~/.adr-mcp/sessions.db and markdown files at ~/.adr-mcp/adrs/. The markdown files are git-committable.

Q: Can I use this without the Stop Hook? Yes. Call save_session manually with your conversation text, then generate_adr with the returned session ID.

Q: Does this work with other AI assistants besides Claude? The MCP server protocol is open, but the Stop Hook is Claude Code-specific. The database and markdown exports are tool-agnostic.

Q: How does duplicate detection work? When generating an ADR, adr-skills extracts significant keywords from the title and decision text and queries for overlapping past ADRs. Matches are shown as warnings — the new ADR is still saved.

Q: What ADR format does this use? The Michael Nygard ADR format (Title, Status, Context, Decision, Consequences), which is the most widely adopted format in the software industry.

Project structure

adr-mcp-setup/
├── index.js      ← MCP server — 9 tool definitions and routing
├── db.js         ← SQLite CRUD (sessions, adrs, adr_relations tables)
├── adr.js        ← ADR extraction and AI review logic (Claude Opus)
├── hook.js       ← Claude Code Stop Hook for automatic session capture
├── .env.example  ← Environment variable template
└── package.json

Database: ~/.adr-mcp/sessions.db ADR files: ~/.adr-mcp/adrs/ADR-NNNN-slug.md

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• Claude Code CLI
• Anthropic API Key (optional — required for AI generation and review)