How do I connect the Claude Code plugin to my Tares Cloud workspace with tares login instead of pasting a key?

Tares lets you connect the Claude Code plugin to your Tares Cloud workspace by running tares login and picking the workspace in the browser. This machine gets its own key on that workspace, and the plugin picks it up, so you paste no URL and no key. The one setting left is the MCP endpoint, which you set to the address that tares login prints.

How it works

tares login signs this machine in to Tares Cloud. It opens the browser, you pick your workspace, and the machine gets its own key on that workspace. The plugin for Claude Code finds that key by itself.

With the login in place, the plugin behaves like this:

• Capture: sessions stream to your workspace with the machine’s key. The plugin’s Tares URL and Access token settings stay as they came.
• Read-back: the session reads Tares over MCP at your workspace’s own /mcp address. The plugin presents the key only to that address.
• MCP endpoint: this is the one setting you change by hand. It must match the address tares login prints.
• Precedence: a Tares URL or Access token you set by hand wins over the login. If you filled either in earlier, clear it when you want the login to take over.

You need the tares CLI at version 1.45.0 or later and the plugin at version 0.5.0 or later. See the Claude Code connector page for the full plugin reference.

Set it up

1. Install the plugin in Claude Code if you have not yet. Run /plugin marketplace add glassflow/tares, then /plugin install tares@tares.

2. Install the CLI if it is missing, with uv tool install tares (or brew install glassflow/tap/tares). Check that it is 1.45.0 or later with tares --version.

3. Sign in:

   tares login

4. Pick your workspace in the browser. When the login finishes, the command prints the MCP address for that workspace. It has this form:

   https://<workspace>.tares-glassflow.com/mcp

   Here the workspace part is your own workspace name.

5. In Claude Code, run /plugin, pick tares, then choose Configure. Set MCP endpoint to the address from step 4.

6. Leave Tares URL and Access token empty, as they came. Anything you type into those two fields overrides the login.

7. Start a Claude Code session and do some work. Then ask:

   Use tares to show me my current session’s timeline.

   In the console, Explore lists the session under the session key, and the source’s Recent events shows messages as they ship.

On Tares Cloud there is nothing to start for MCP. You do not run tares mcp and you do not run tares up.

What you get

• No pasted secrets. The machine holds its own key on your workspace, so you copy no key into the plugin settings.
• Capture into your workspace. Hooks ship new transcript lines on each prompt, tool use and session end. The plugin creates the push source the first time it runs, so you set up no source by hand.
• Read-back over MCP. The same agent can read the data plane through your workspace’s /mcp address, so it can look at its own history.
• Queryable sessions. Sessions carry session, project, branch and model labels, and sub-agents roll up into the same source. You can correlate what the agent did with what your systems did, which fits the workflows in AI SRE.
• Redaction before storage. Redaction of obvious secrets runs server-side and is on by default, so it applies before anything is stored.

Capture is forward-only. Sessions stream from the moment the plugin is installed, and transcripts already on disk are not backfilled.

When something else fits

• If you run Tares locally, skip tares login. Keep the default Tares URL and MCP endpoint, run tares up, and start the MCP endpoint with tares mcp --transport streamable-http.
• If your instance is secured and you want a fixed key, set Access token by hand. It wins over the login, so prefer a read + ingest API key so the plugin can both stream sessions and read back over MCP.
• If you are on a plugin older than 0.5.0 or a CLI older than 1.45.0, update first. Older versions do not pick up the login.

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