Reference
alter init
Add the Alter Docs MCP server to a project's MCP client config.
alter init writes the hosted Alter Docs MCP server into the project’s MCP client configuration, so a coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor) can guide the integration end to end — classify the use case, walk the setup or modification flow, wire the SDK, and point at the verification gates.
alter init [--client claude|cursor] [--url <url>] [--name <name>] [--dir <path>] [--force]The onboarding MCP serves guidance only — it is unauthenticated and holds no credentials, so this command touches no secrets.
| Flag | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
--client <client> | auto-detect | claude writes .mcp.json; cursor writes .cursor/mcp.json. Auto-detect picks cursor when a .cursor/ directory exists. |
--url <url> | https://mcp.alterauth.com/mcp | Endpoint to register (override for staging/self-hosted); must be a valid HTTP or HTTPS URL. |
--name <name> | alter-onboarding | The non-empty server entry name in the config; surrounding whitespace is trimmed. |
--dir <path> | . | Project root to write into. |
--force | off | Replace an existing entry with the same name. Other entries are always preserved. |
Existing config files are merged, never clobbered: other MCP server entries are kept as-is, an invalid JSON file is refused rather than overwritten, and replacing an existing same-name entry requires --force (exit code 5 otherwise). After writing, restart the MCP client and ask the coding agent to call the server’s get_started tool.