grok-build-plugin: Grok Build for any coding agent
Want Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor to drive Grok Build? If you already pay for a Grok subscription, this gives any of those agents live X search and data right in their context. A couple of ways to wire it up.
Bring Grok Build's live X (Twitter) + web search (and its coding agent) into the tools you already use. Two ways to consume it:
- An MCP tool (
grok_search): works in any MCP-capable agent: Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, and others. This is the cross-agent, real-time-search core.
- A Claude Code / Grok plugin: convenience slash commands (
/grok:search, /grok:review, /grok:rescue, and more) plus a delegation subagent, with the MCP tool auto-wired in.
Grok Build has native, real-time access to X and the web, strong for breaking news, social sentiment, current package/version facts, and anything where "what's true right now" matters, which a model's training cutoff can't provide. This project is a thin, auditable wrapper around your local grok CLI.
What you get
grok_search MCP tool: live X/web search with sources, callable autonomously by any MCP-capable agent (the cross-agent core)/grok:search: the same search as an explicit slash command/grok:review: a read-only Grok code review of your uncommitted changes or a branch/grok:rescue: delegate a coding/investigation task to Grok (write-capable)/grok:status, /grok:result, /grok:cancel: manage background jobs/grok:setup: verify Grok is installed and signed in- a
grok:grok-rescue subagent that Claude can hand substantial tasks to proactively
Quick start: add grok_search to your agent
Works today in any MCP-capable agent, no install or publish step. You just need the Grok Build CLI signed in (grok login).
// drop into your agent's MCP config (see the per-agent table below for the path)
{
"mcpServers": {
"grok": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "grok-build-x-search-mcp"] }
}
}
Or one line for OpenAI Codex:
codex mcp add grok -- npx -y grok-build-x-search-mcp
Then just ask your agent to "search X for ..." and it will call grok_search. Verified live in Codex, Antigravity (agy), and Gemini CLI. Full per-agent paths are in Per-agent setup.
Requirements
- Grok Build CLI installed and on your
PATH as grok (or point GROK_BIN at it). Verify with grok --version.
- A signed-in Grok account (
grok login). Usage counts toward your Grok limits.
- Node.js 18.18 or later.
Install
Add the marketplace in Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add VasiHemanth/grok-build-plugin
Install the plugin:
/plugin install grok@grok-build-plugin
Reload plugins:
/reload-plugins
Then run:
/grok:setup
/grok:setup reports whether Grok is installed and authenticated. If it is installed but not signed in, run !grok login and rerun setup.
Usage
/grok:search: live X + web search
Grok's specialty. Answers questions using current information from X and the web, then lists its sources (including x.com post links when used).
/grok:search what are people on X saying about the new React release this week
/grok:search latest stable version of Node.js, with a source
/grok:search --background deep dive on recent X discussion of AI agent frameworks
Read-only: it only searches and reads; it never edits files.
/grok:review: read-only code review
Runs a read-only Grok review of your current work. Grok will not modify any files.
/grok:review
/grok:review --base main
/grok:review --background look for race conditions in the new queue code
- Default target is your uncommitted changes.
--base <ref> reviews the current branch against that ref.
- Any text after the flags becomes extra reviewer focus.
- Supports
--background for large diffs.
/grok:rescue: delegate a task to Grok
Hands a task to Grok through the grok:grok-rescue subagent. Write-capable by default.
/grok:rescue investigate why the integration tests started failing
/grok:rescue fix the failing test with the smallest safe patch
/grok:rescue --read-only diagnose the memory leak without changing code
/grok:rescue --resume-last apply the top fix from the last run
/grok:rescue --background --effort high refactor the database connection layer
--read-only restricts Grok to reading/searching (no edits or shell).--resume-last continues the latest Grok task session in this repo; --fresh forces a new one. If you omit both, the plugin offers to continue when a resumable session exists.--model <id> and --effort <low|medium|high> are optional runtime controls.
You can also just ask in natural language, e.g. "Ask Grok to redesign the retry logic to be more resilient," and Claude will route it to the subagent.
/grok:status, /grok:result, /grok:cancel
/grok:status # list running and recent jobs for this repo
/grok:result # final output of the most recent completed job
/grok:result --job <id> # a specific job
/grok:cancel # cancel the most recent running job
/grok:result includes the Grok session id so you can reopen that run directly with grok -r <session-id> and continue it inside Grok.
How it works
The plugin wraps the local grok CLI's headless mode:
grok -p "<prompt>" --output-format json
# → { "text": ..., "stopReason": ..., "sessionId": ..., "requestId": ... }
There is no separate server or daemon. Grok manages its own session store (under ~/.grok/sessions), so:
- it uses the same Grok install and login you use directly,
- sessions started here can be resumed in the Grok TUI with
grok -r <id> (and vice versa),
- read-only commands (search/review) use a denylist of write/shell/MCP/media tools plus
--sandbox read-only and --no-subagents, so Grok cannot edit your repo. They also
disable vendor MCP imports in the child so a search turn cannot re-enter grok_search
(fork-bomb defence; see issue #1).
CLI note (--tools bug): on grok-cli 0.2.x, grok -p ... --tools web_search,web_fetch
often fails session creation (Requirements unsatisfied for run_terminal_cmd /
auto_background_on_timeout). This plugin therefore never uses --tools for
search/review; it uses --disallowed-tools instead. Set GROK_CC_FORCE_TOOLS_ALLOWLIST=1
only if you know your CLI build has fixed allowlists.
Background jobs run the headless turn in a detached process, streaming output to a per-repository log under ~/.grok/cc-plugin/jobs/. /grok:status and /grok:result read from there.
Environment variables
| Variable | Purpose |
|---|
GROK_BIN | Path to the grok binary if it isn't named grok on PATH. |
GROK_CC_STATE_DIR | Override the background-job state directory (used by tests). |
GROK_SEARCH_MCP_MAX_INFLIGHT | Max concurrent grok_search calls per MCP server process (default 2). |
GROK_CC_FORCE_TOOLS_ALLOWLIST | Set to 1 to re-enable --tools allowlists (not recommended on CLI 0.2.x). |
Use the search tool from any agent (MCP)
grok_search is a dependency-free MCP server (JSON-RPC over stdio). It runs straight from this repo with npx, so there's nothing to publish or build, and it's the same one repo as the plugin.
For Claude Code and Grok, the bundled plugin wires it up automatically. For any other MCP-capable agent, add this to its MCP config:
// OpenAI Codex (~/.codex/config.toml uses TOML; others use JSON like this)
{
"mcpServers": {
"grok": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "grok-build-x-search-mcp"]
}
}
}
Then the agent can call grok_search(query) on its own whenever it needs current information. It returns a synthesized answer plus a Sources list (including x.com links). The tool is read-only (Grok is restricted to web_search/web_fetch). It uses your local grok CLI, so you must have it installed and signed in.
Per-agent setup
| Agent | How to add | Config location |
|---|
| OpenAI Codex | codex mcp add grok -- npx -y grok-build-x-search-mcp | ~/.codex/config.toml |
| Gemini CLI | add the JSON block above under mcpServers | ~/.gemini/settings.json |
Antigravity (agy) | add the JSON block above under mcpServers | ~/.gemini/config/mcp_config.json (or workspace .agents/mcp_config.json) |
| Cursor | add the JSON block above | ~/.cursor/mcp.json |
| Claude Code / Grok | install the plugin (auto-wired) | bundled .mcp.json |
Tested live with the npx launch (both github: during development and the published grok-build-x-search-mcp): OpenAI Codex, Antigravity (agy), Gemini CLI, plus the standalone server handshake. Any other MCP client (Cursor, opencode, Copilot) uses the same JSON config.
Why npx grok-build-x-search-mcp (preferred) or npx github:...
MCP clients resolve plugin paths differently. Claude Code and Grok substitute ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}, but Codex does not, so a ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}-based manifest fails there. Using the published package (npx -y grok-build-x-search-mcp) or npx -y github:VasiHemanth/grok-build-plugin sidesteps all of it: npm hands every harness a correct absolute path, and the server resolves its own imports relative to itself (not the working directory). One manifest, every agent.
The published package on npm gives the fastest cold start (no git clone). The github: form still works as a fallback / for development and always points at the latest from the repo.
Publishing the MCP server part to npm as grok-build-x-search-mcp (distinct from the plugin marketplace name) is now complete for v0.1.0+. The repo is grok-build-plugin on GitHub (was previously grok-mcp). The Claude/Grok plugin is installed via the marketplace using the repo name.
Cross-harness: install in Grok too
This plugin follows the shared plugin spec, so it installs into Grok Build as a native plugin as well as into Claude Code. Grok reads Claude-format marketplaces, scans ~/.claude/skills/, honors ~/.claude/settings.json, and maps a plugin's commands/ into its own skill/slash-command system. Verified with grok plugin validate and a full install cycle.
# Validate against Grok's plugin spec
grok plugin validate ./plugins/grok
# Install locally into Grok (trusts hooks/MCP)
grok plugin install ./plugins/grok --trust
# Or from a published repo / marketplace
grok plugin install VasiHemanth/grok-build-plugin#plugins/grok --trust
grok plugin marketplace add VasiHemanth/grok-build-plugin
grok plugin list # confirm it's installed
grok inspect # see its skills/agents/commands (tagged `plugin: grok`)
grok plugin uninstall grok --confirm
When installed, Grok surfaces the grok-runtime skill, the grok-rescue agent, and the search/review/rescue/setup/status/result/cancel commands.
Note: the plugin's primary purpose is to bring Grok into Claude Code. Inside Grok itself, the search/review capabilities are largely native already, and the companion shells out to grok -p (a nested Grok run). Installing it in Grok is mainly useful for format parity and multi-harness/team marketplaces, delegating between Grok, Codex, and Gemini from whichever harness you're in.
Development
npm test # runtime unit tests + MCP server smoke tests (no Grok account needed)
The runtime lives in plugins/grok/scripts/:
grok-mcp.mjs: the MCP server (source) exposing the grok_search tool (cross-agent; published separately to npm as grok-build-x-search-mcp)grok-companion.mjs: CLI dispatcher behind the slash commandslib/grok.mjs: headless grok invocation + result parsing (shared by both)lib/jobs.mjs: background-job tracking and log replaylib/git.mjs, lib/prompts.mjs, lib/args.mjs, lib/render.mjs, lib/process.mjs: supporting helpers
See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup and conventions.
FAQ
Do I need a separate Grok account?
No. The plugin uses your local grok CLI authentication. If you're already signed in (grok login), it works immediately.
Does it use a separate Grok runtime?
No. It delegates to your local grok CLI on the same machine, with the same auth, config, and repository checkout.
Is the review really read-only?
Yes. Review and search runs strip write/shell/MCP/media tools via --disallowed-tools, run under --sandbox read-only, and disable subagents. /grok:rescue is write-capable by default (use --read-only to restrict it).
Why did grok_search fail with Couldn't create session / run_terminal_cmd?
That is the grok-cli --tools allowlist bug (0.2.x). Upgrade this plugin to ≥0.1.4 (denylist path). If you still see it, you are on an old install or have GROK_CC_FORCE_TOOLS_ALLOWLIST=1 set.
Credits
Independent implementation. Its plugin layout and command surface were inspired by the architecture of openai/codex-plugin-cc (Apache-2.0); no source code was copied. See NOTICE.
License
Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.
Unofficial / community project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or any other vendor. "Grok", "Claude Code", "Codex", "Cursor", and "Antigravity" are trademarks of their respective owners; names are used only to describe interoperability. You are responsible for complying with xAI and X terms when using your Grok CLI through this tool.
