Powerplant
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Technical Details

Requirements, CLI commands, what leaves your machine, what Powerplant stores locally, and how to uninstall.

Requirements

  • macOS 26 or later, with Node.js 20 or later and npm. Background sync runs as a launchd agent, alongside a menu bar app.
    • We have a single-executable Mac build coming shortly, which will obviate the need for you to worry about Node versions.
  • Windows 11 on x64 or ARM. Background sync runs as a per-user Task Scheduler task.
  • Coding agents: Claude Code 2.1.186+, Codex 0.134.0+, or Cursor 3.4+.

Commands

  • powerplant status: what background sync is doing, and how to fix problems.
  • powerplant doctor: diagnostics for support. Prints only, uploads nothing.
  • powerplant connect [--client claude|codex|cursor]: connect agents installed later, or sign in again.
  • powerplant pause and powerplant resume: stop and restart uploads.
  • powerplant folders add|remove <path>: manually sync an extra folder from this machine, in addition to the team-wide ones.
  • powerplant update [--automatic on|off]: update now, or change automatic updates.
  • powerplant uninstall [--forget]: remove background sync. See Uninstalling.

powerplant --help lists the rest.

What leaves your machine

  • Redacted sessions in allowlisted repos. Workspace owners and admins choose the repos in Settings. Until they do, Powerplant syncs your organization's GitHub repos. There's no sync-everything option.
  • CLI crash reports go to Sentry. They never include transcripts, code, or file contents. Contact us about opting out.

For how synced data is stored and protected, see Security and Privacy.

What's stored locally

  • Machine token: ~/.config/powerplant/collector-production.encrypted.json, AES-256-GCM encrypted, readable only by your user. Its key is in the macOS Keychain (powerplant-collector-encryption) or, on Windows, protected by DPAPI in collector-production.key.dpapi beside it.
  • Agent MCP sign-ins: in each agent's own config.
  • Agent hooks: ~/.claude/settings.json, ~/.codex/hooks.json, ~/.cursor/hooks.json.
  • Background sync: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/sh.powerplant.collector.production.plist on macOS, or the Powerplant-<SID> scheduled task on Windows.
  • State and logs: ~/.config/powerplant/, plus ~/Library/Application Support/Powerplant/ and ~/Library/Logs/powerplant-collector-production.log on macOS.

Of course, on Windows, ~ is %USERPROFILE%.

Verifying the Windows installer

You can check the installer before running it:

Invoke-WebRequest https://api.usepowerplant.com/install.ps1 -OutFile install.ps1 -UseBasicParsing
Get-AuthenticodeSignature .\install.ps1 | Format-List Status, SignerCertificate
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy AllSigned -File .\install.ps1

The status should be Valid, signed by O="Forestwalk Labs, Inc.", C=CA.

Uninstalling

powerplant disconnect          # remove the Powerplant MCP and its sign-in from your agents
powerplant uninstall --forget  # remove background sync, hooks, and this machine's credentials

Without --forget, credentials are kept so you can reinstall without re-approving using powerplant init.

To remove the CLI itself:

  • macOS: npm uninstall -g @usepowerplant/cli, and delete ~/Applications/Powerplant.app.
  • Windows: delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Powerplant and remove it from your user Path.

Optionally, delete the state and logs listed above. To revoke an agent's access on the server too, use your profile.

Get help

We're rapidly improving Powerplant based on teams' feedback, so let us know how things could be better in your team's shared Slack channel with us, or email support@usepowerplant.com.