Use your own AI tool

Or use the built-in assistant

In Studio, the shipLua panel’s Agent tab has an assistant that runs on your own Anthropic API key or Claude token. Paste it in Settings and pick a model (Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 or Haiku 5.5). The key stays in Studio’s plugin settings on your computer and is sent only to Anthropic, never to shipLua. The assistant reads the open place by itself, shows how much context it is using, and every change it proposes waits for your approval like the ones below.

Ask it to “set up shipLua in this game” and it walks through the guided setup, saying what each step does first: connect the game, check your plan has room, install or update the SDK, set up funnels, then draft a first A/B test. Your own AI tool can follow the same guide (setup_guide in shiplua-mcp, get_setup_guide and the set_up_game prompt on shipLua MCP).

How it fits together

• The shipLua CLI runs on your computer. Its shiplua-mcp command is an MCP server your AI tool starts.
• The shipLua plugin in Studio connects to the CLI on this computer only. Your AI tool reads the open place through it and sends changes back to it.
• Every reply from your AI tool arrives as one change: the plugin shows a diff of each edit and applies it as one undo step (Ctrl+Z undoes the whole reply).

1. Install the CLI

It needs Node.js 20 or newer.

# macOS or Linux
curl -fsSL https://shiplua.com/cli/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://shiplua.com/cli/install.ps1 | iex

2. Add it to your AI tool

claude mcp add shiplua-studio -- shiplua-mcp

codex mcp add shiplua-studio -- shiplua-mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shiplua-studio": { "command": "shiplua-mcp" }
  }
}

For your studio’s numbers, tasks and experiments, also add shipLua MCP with a personal token (see AI, MCP and editors).

3. Connect Studio

1. Start your AI tool, or run shiplua bridge. Either shows a code such as BKFW-QPTM.
2. In Studio, open the shipLua panel, go to Agent, press Connect AI tools and enter the code. Allow HTTP requests to localhost when Studio asks.
3. Pick how changes are approved (below). Manual is the default.

Approval modes

• Manual: every change waits for you to press Approve.
• Accept edits: script edits apply right away; creating, deleting or changing anything else waits for you.
• Plan: nothing changes. Proposals stay in the panel to read.
• Auto: changes apply right away.

Set up funnels

Ask your AI tool to “set up funnels with shipLua”. It works out how your code is edited, best first:

1. Project files (Rojo or Argon, a default.project.json in the folder): the change goes into your files, since an edit made in Studio would be overwritten by the next sync. Wally projects get the SDK through wally.toml.
2. Studio: through the shipLua plugin, as above.
3. Copy and paste: each step’s line and where it goes.

shipLua proposes five steps: joins, does the main thing, gets a first reward, makes a first purchase, comes back the next day. You approve or edit them, then see every line it would add. It adds nothing until you say yes. It also records each developer product purchase once (by its PurchaseId) when your ProcessReceipt does not yet. The funnel appears on your dashboard straight away and shows “waiting for first events” until players reach it.

In a project folder you can run the same flow without an AI tool: shiplua setup funnel. In Studio alone, use the plugin’s Grow tab.

# Only for funnel setup in project files and saving to your dashboard from the CLI:
export SHIPLUA_TOKEN=shiplua_...      # Settings > Studio > AI tools
export SHIPLUA_PROJECT_ID=...         # when your studio has more than one game

Updates

Ask “is shipLua up to date?” (the check_update tool). Your AI tool asks before it runs shiplua update, which updates the SDK in your project and the CLI; running it again changes nothing. Studio loads plugins when it starts, so a new plugin comes from its install link followed by a Studio restart.

Things to ask

Set up funnels with shipLua.
Check this place for bugs that lose purchases, then fix the worst one.
Is my shipLua plugin, SDK and CLI up to date?