Use Ask and Ship from your coding agent without confusing plugin workflows with local CLI sync.
Ask and Ship are supplied by the hamster plugin from gethamster/plugin. hamster init and hamster sync do not create these commands.
Claude Code namespaces plugin skills, so the two commands appear as /hamster:ask-hamster <request> and /hamster:ship [brief-slug-or-uuid-or-url]. Other agent surfaces use their own command UX, but the underlying plugin skills are the same.
Ask connects your request and useful local code, branch, diff, or error context with Hamster workspace knowledge.
/ask-hamster I'm changing auth middleware on this branch. Which workspace decisions apply?
Claude Code uses the namespaced form:
/hamster:ask-hamster I'm changing auth middleware on this branch. Which workspace decisions apply?
Ask prefers the hosted Hamster MCP server the plugin configures and calls its ask_hamster tool with your request and the local context Hamster cannot see on its own. If those MCP tools are unavailable and the CLI is installed and signed in, the same ask path falls back to hamster chat, the CLI's terminal conversation gateway, which can continue the same conversation for a genuine follow-up.
Ship accepts a Brief slug, UUID, or full Studio URL:
/ship improve-cli-docs
/ship 2de8d546-50ab-4dbd-a678-579ec8119f60
/ship https://tryhamster.com/home/hamster/briefs/2de8d546-50ab-4dbd-a678-579ec8119f60
Run /ship with no argument to list actionable Briefs from the local projection and choose one interactively. Claude Code uses /hamster:ship with the same optional input.
Ship runs inside your local coding-agent session and executes the existing Plan and Tasks from synced .hamster/ context. It also reads the local project-context skill, Blueprints, and Methods generated by hamster sync, and can update status through the CLI as work progresses.
Ship can create local branches and commits, but it asks for your explicit consent before every remote push or pull-request operation.
The hamster plugin ships six more commands alongside Ask and Ship. Claude Code namespaces each one as /hamster:<name>.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
setup |
Installs the Hamster CLI, signs you in, and syncs the plan into the current repository. Run it for first-run setup, or when Ship, Plan, or Resume report SETUP_NEEDED. |
plan-hamster |
Read-only analysis of a Brief: it builds the dependency tree and wave schedule from the synced Plan, with optional CEO or engineering review modes, and changes no code. |
resume-hamster |
Continues an interrupted Ship session. It reconstructs progress from Task statuses and git history, then restarts at the correct wave. |
review-hamster |
Two-pass code review of the current feature branch: critical issues that block shipping first, then advisory findings. |
qa |
Systematic QA over your changes, with diff-aware, full-suite, quick-smoke, or regression modes and an optional fix loop. |
retro |
Engineering retrospective from git history over a time window: team metrics, contributor detail, trends, and suggested actions. |
review-hamster, qa, and retro require a .hamster/ projection in the repository, so run hamster sync before you use them.
The plugin supplies the host-native Ask, Ship, and workflow commands. The Go CLI supplies terminal chat, authentication, account and team selection, the TUI, and the synced local context that Ship executes. hamster init and hamster sync do not install the plugin or create Ask and Ship.
The plugin also configures the hosted Hamster MCP server at https://tryhamster.com/mcp, which is the path Ask prefers. See MCP Available Tools for the tools that integration exposes.