Tribunal Usage

Use Tribunal commands for TDD enforcement, quality gates, secret scanning, Agent Teams hooks, CI integration, and plugin packs. Use when running quality checks, configuring enforcement modes, checking audit logs, using tribunal ci in pipelines, managing plugin packs, or working with multi-agent Claude Code workflows that need quality gates between agents.

Tribunal — Usage Guide

Tribunal is a Claude Code quality enforcement plugin. Once installed (pip install tribunal && tribunal init), it hooks into every file write, test run, and agent interaction.

Core Commands

tribunal status

Show current config, hook health, and audit summary.

tribunal status
tribunal status --json

tribunal doctor

Pre-flight health check — all hooks, deps, .claude/ wiring.

tribunal doctor        # interactive
tribunal doctor --json # for CI

Exit code 1 = something broken. Follow the ✗ suggestions to fix.

tribunal ci — Standalone quality gate

Run all checks without Claude Code. Use in CI pipelines.

tribunal ci                           # check git-diff'd files
tribunal ci src/payments.py           # specific files
tribunal ci --json                    # machine-readable report
tribunal ci --coverage-threshold 80   # fail if coverage < 80%

Exit codes: 0 = all pass · 1 = failures · 2 = warnings only

tribunal init — Project setup

tribunal init                        # interactive wizard
tribunal init --non-interactive      # CI/agent use, sensible defaults
tribunal init --project-dir /path    # target specific directory

Quality Modes

Control enforcement level per session via CLAUDE_CODE_MODE env var:

Mode	Enforcement	TDD	Coverage
code (default)	Strict — blocks on failure	Block	80%
code--chill	Advisory — warns only	Warn	60%
Custom	Configure in tribunal/modes/<name>.json	Configurable	Configurable

Add a "tribunal" block to any mode JSON:

{
  "tribunal": {
    "tddEnforcement": "advisory",
    "secretScanning": true,
    "coverageThreshold": 70,
    "blockOnFail": false
  }
}

Hook Events

Tribunal intercepts these Claude Code lifecycle events:

Event	Hook	What it does
PreToolUse (Write/Edit)	file_checker	Secrets, language quality, path traversal
PostToolUse (Bash)	tdd_enforcer	Tests pass/fail, coverage threshold
Stop	context_monitor	Warns when context window filling up
TeammateIdle	teammate_idle	Blocks orchestrator if sub-agent left broken code
TaskCompleted	task_completed	Audits sub-agent session before marking done
SessionEnd	session_end	Writes session summary to audit log

Plugin Packs

tribunal list-packs                    # browse registry
tribunal install python-strict         # 90% coverage, type hints, docstrings
tribunal install go-tdd                # go test -cover, go vet, -race flag
tribunal install nextjs-quality        # TypeScript strict, component tests, a11y
tribunal install https://github.com/org/custom-pack   # direct URL
tribunal install ./local-pack/         # local directory

MCP Integration

Tribunal exposes MCP tools queryable by any Claude Code session:

tribunal_status       — current hook config, mode, version
tribunal_audit        — recent audit entries (filterable by outcome/agent)
tribunal_check_file   — run file_checker on any path
tribunal_agent_summary — quality summary for a specific agent_id

Use via Claude Code's MCP connector pointing to the Tribunal MCP server.

Agent Teams Quality Gates

In multi-agent workflows, Tribunal gates quality between agents:

Orchestrator → spawns Sub-agent A
Sub-agent A writes files
TeammateIdle fires → tribunal checks A's files
  ✅ pass → orchestrator continues
  ❌ fail → orchestrator blocked until A fixes issues

Configure in tribunal/rules/multi-agent-quality.md (auto-injected).

Audit Log

All hook events logged to .tribunal/audit.jsonl:

cat .tribunal/audit.jsonl | jq '.[] | select(.outcome=="blocked")'

Fields: timestamp, hook_name, file_path, outcome, duration_ms, agent_id, detail

Context Monitor Thresholds

Configure in tribunal/settings.json:

{
  "contextMonitor": {
    "warnThreshold": 80,
    "handoffThreshold": 90
  }
}

Set CLAUDE_CONTEXT_WINDOW=1000000 env var for 1M context window (thresholds auto-scale).

VS Code Extension

After install, open VS Code in your project. The Tribunal extension:

• Shows 🏛 Passing / 🏛 1 Warning / 🏛 2 Blocked in status bar
• Adds gutter icons (✅/⚠️/⛔) per file after hooks fire
• Streams hook events to the "Tribunal" output channel
• Reads .tribunal/audit.jsonl automatically

Live Dashboard

# Open in browser after starting a Claude Code session
open tribunal/ui/viewer.html

Shows: live hook feed, context gauge, session stats, filterable audit log.

Full docs: https://tribunal.dev · GitHub: https://github.com/thebotclub/tribunal