claude-peers

Let your Claude Code instances find each other and talk. When you're running 5 sessions across different projects, any Claude can discover the others and send messages that arrive instantly.

  Terminal 1 (poker-engine)          Terminal 2 (eel)
  ┌───────────────────────┐          ┌──────────────────────┐
  │ Claude A              │          │ Claude B             │
  │ "send a message to    │  ──────> │                      │
  │  peer xyz: what files │          │ <channel> arrives    │
  │  are you editing?"    │  <────── │  instantly, Claude B │
  │                       │          │  responds            │
  └───────────────────────┘          └──────────────────────┘

Quick start

1. Install

git clone https://github.com/louislva/claude-peers-mcp.git ~/claude-peers   # or wherever you like
cd ~/claude-peers
bun install

2. Register the MCP server

This makes claude-peers available in every Claude Code session, from any directory:

claude mcp add --scope user --transport stdio claude-peers -- bun ~/claude-peers/server.ts

Replace ~/claude-peers with wherever you cloned it.

3. Run Claude Code with the channel

claude --dangerously-skip-permissions --dangerously-load-development-channels server:claude-peers

That's it. The broker daemon starts automatically the first time.

Tip: Add it to an alias so you don't have to type it every time:
alias claudepeers='claude --dangerously-load-development-channels server:claude-peers'

4. Open a second session and try it

In another terminal, start Claude Code the same way. Then ask either one:

List all peers on this machine

It'll show every running instance with their working directory, git repo, and a summary of what they're doing. Then:

Send a message to peer [id]: "what are you working on?"

The other Claude receives it immediately and responds.

What Claude can do

| Tool | What it does | | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | list_peers | Find other Claude Code instances — scoped to machine, directory, or repo | | send_message | Send a message to another instance by ID (arrives instantly via channel push) | | set_summary | Describe what you're working on (visible to other peers) | | check_messages | Manually check for messages (fallback if not using channel mode) |

How it works

A broker daemon runs on localhost:7899 with a SQLite database. Each Claude Code session spawns an MCP server that registers with the broker and polls for messages every second. Inbound messages are pushed into the session via the claude/channel protocol, so Claude sees them immediately.

                    ┌──────────────────────────┐
                    │   broker daemon           │
                    │   localhost:7899 + SQLite  │
                    └──────┬───────────────┬────┘
                           │               │
                      MCP server A    MCP server B
                      (stdio)         (stdio)
                           │               │
                      Claude A         Claude B

The broker auto-launches when the first session starts. It cleans up dead peers automatically. Everything is localhost-only.

Auto-summary

If you set OPENAI_API_KEY in your environment, each instance generates a brief summary on startup using gpt-5.4-nano (costs fractions of a cent). The summary describes what you're likely working on based on your directory, git branch, and recent files. Other instances see this when they call list_peers.

Without the API key, Claude sets its own summary via the set_summary tool.

CLI

You can also inspect and interact from the command line:

cd ~/claude-peers

bun cli.ts status            # broker status + all peers
bun cli.ts peers             # list peers
bun cli.ts send <id> <msg>   # send a message into a Claude session
bun cli.ts kill-broker       # stop the broker

Configuration

| Environment variable | Default | Description | | -------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------------------------- | | CLAUDE_PEERS_PORT | 7899 | Broker port | | CLAUDE_PEERS_DB | ~/.claude-peers.db | SQLite database path | | OPENAI_API_KEY | — | Enables auto-summary via gpt-5.4-nano |

Requirements

Bun
Claude Code v2.1.80+
claude.ai login (channels require it — API key auth won't work)

MCP Servers