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PRACTICAL SETUP GUIDE

Arming Cursor, Claude Code, and Windsurf: The 10-Second MCP Safety Net Guide

A step-by-step setup guide to provisioning the 2-Strikes Circuit Breaker across all 9 major editors, reviewing visual telemetry on port 3900, and eliminating token waste.

Why Your AI Coding Assistant Needs an External Circuit Breaker

Whether you code inside Cursor, run autonomous agents via Claude Code, build with Windsurf, or pair with Cline, your AI assistant operates with read/write filesystem access and terminal execution privileges.

Without an external safety net, a single misunderstood prompt can spiral into hundreds of lines of churned dead code and hanging processes. ctrl-alt-pray provides a local-first, zero-dependency circuit breaker.

Option 1: Universal 1-Click Direct Install (Fastest)

If your editor supports deep-link URL handlers, click one of the buttons below to install immediately:

Editor	Direct 1-Click Action	Target Config File
Cursor	⚡ 1-Click Install in Cursor	`.cursor/mcp.json`
VS Code / Copilot	⚡ 1-Click Install in VS Code	`.vscode/mcp.json`
Web Configurator	🌐 Open Interactive Web Configurator	Custom Download

Option 2: CLI Auto-Ignition (`npx ctrl-alt-pray init`)

Open any repository on your machine and run:

npx ctrl-alt-pray init

The auto-detection engine inspects your directory, detects active editor configurations, and injects both the MCP server registration and the 2-Strikes Circuit Breaker rules.

Provisioning All Editors Simultaneously

If you work across multiple editors (e.g. Cursor for frontend and Claude Code for terminal tasks):

npx ctrl-alt-pray init --all

What Gets Injected: The Anatomy of the Tripwire

Running init embeds an inviolable behavioral contract into your workspace configuration (e.g. .cursorrules, CLAUDE.md, GEMINI.md):

<!-- START CTRL-ALT-PRAY TRIPWIRE -->
### 🛑 Anti-Doom-Loop Circuit Breaker (ctrl-alt-pray)
1. STRICT 2-FAILURE LIMIT: If ANY test or build fails twice, STOP editing immediately.
2. NO BLIND GUESSING: Do not touch application code a 3rd time without verified evidence.
3. MANDATORY ACTION: Invoke MCP tool 'pray'. It will prescribe ONE bounded experiment.
4. TERMINAL FREEZE: If a command hangs >15s, invoke 'pray' (strategy="ghost-terminal-breaker").
5. ZERO APOLOGIES: Do not apologize. State your single testable hypothesis and execute the probe.
<!-- END CTRL-ALT-PRAY TRIPWIRE -->

Verifying Your Setup

1. Launch the Visual Dashboard

ctrl-alt-pray dashboard

Open http://127.0.0.1:3900 to view an Apple/Linear minimalist recovery ledger displaying intercepted loops and token savings.

2. CLI Telemetry

pray stats

Prints live statistics on loop recovery rates and estimated token dollars saved.

Ready to Arm Your Workspace?

Open-source, local-first, zero runtime dependencies.

npx ctrl-alt-pray init

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