serena-setup

A setup skill for Serena MCP in Git worktrees. A worktree is a separate working directory created by Git for another branch; Serena MCP is a code and project-file tool connection.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when starting in a new worktree or when Serena's active project path is wrong; it copies relevant cache and memories, installs a Git hook, and activates the current project.
Why use it?
It fixes cases where Serena uses the main repository instead of the current worktree.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/skillpanel/claude-plugins/serena-setup
Any agent
npx skills add SkillPanel/claude-plugins --skill serena-setup
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/SkillPanel/claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 59 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 569 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00059 $0.00569
Opus 5 $0.00030 $0.00284
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00114
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00057

Measured 2d ago against content hash 853d9fd3b6e0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

serena-setup scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 2 executable files (post-checkout-serena.sh, setup-serena.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/serena-setup/skills/serena-setup/SKILL.md · 51 lines

What it actually says

Overview

Configures Serena MCP to work in a git worktree. Copies cache and memories from the main repo, installs a post-checkout hook for future worktrees, and activates the project.

project.yml should be committed to git. memories/ are copied from main repo by the setup script (like cache/).

If running in the main repository

Run setup-serena.sh — it detects the main repo and installs the post-checkout hook only. Report the output to the user.

If running in a worktree

Step 1 — Run setup script:

<base-directory>/setup-serena.sh

Replace <base-directory> with the actual base directory shown at the top of this skill's context.

If it fails, show the error and stop. If it succeeds, check the output for [warn] lines and report them to the user.

Step 2 — Activate project:

Serena MCP is shared across sessions and won't auto-activate the worktree project. Activate it explicitly:

  1. Call activate_project with the worktree path ($PWD)
  2. Call check_onboarding_performed
  3. If memories exist: done — move to Step 3
  4. If no memories: do NOT run onboarding. The setup script should have copied them from main. Tell the user: "Memories missing — run onboarding in the main repo first, then re-run /serena-setup"

Step 3 — Verify:

Call list_dir with relative_path: "." to confirm Serena is reading the worktree (not the main repo or a parent directory).

Tell user: "Serena setup complete. Future worktrees will get .serena/cache automatically via post-checkout hook."

Common Mistakes

Mistake Consequence
Running in main repo Script installs hook only — no worktree setup needed
Running onboarding in worktree Wastes time recreating memories that exist in main repo — never do this
.serena/project.yml not committed to git Worktrees won't have it after checkout — script warns and copies as workaround
Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 51 lines · 59 tokens per session scan A 853d9fd3b6e0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

serena-setup is a skill published in the GitHub repository SkillPanel/claude-plugins (3 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 59 tokens to every session and 569 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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