Frao Advisor: The Installation Guide

The previous post covered what Frao Advisor is and what the first 459 records show. This one covers how to get it running in your own Claude Code setup. The server is a single static binary and a handful of environment variables — the entire install is a clone, a build, and one registration command. Linux, macOS, and Windows are all covered; the steps differ only in a flag or two.

What you need

• A DeepSeek API key. Sign up at platform.deepseek.com, open API Keys, and create one. Keys look like sk-... and are the only thing the advisor requires at runtime.
• Go 1.26 or newer, because you build the binary yourself. Install it from go.dev — there is no packaged download yet.
• git, to clone the repository.

That is the full list. The build needs no C compiler: the SQLite driver is pure Go, so the same source compiles cleanly on every platform.

Step 1 — Get the source

git clone https://github.com/prhymera/frao-advisor
cd frao-advisor

Step 2 — Build the binary

One command on the platform you are building on. The output lands in the current directory.

Linux

go build -o frao-advisor .

This produces an executable named frao-advisor. The project’s own Makefile adds -ldflags="-s -w" to strip debug symbols and shrink the file; it is an optimization, not a requirement.

macOS

go build -o frao-advisor .

The same command. Go ships with toolchains for both Apple Silicon and Intel, so you do not need to think about your chip.

Windows

From PowerShell:

go build -o frao-advisor.exe .

The output is frao-advisor.exe. Because the driver is pure Go, no Visual Studio or C toolchain is involved.

Building for another platform (optional): Go can cross-compile from any OS. Set GOOS and GOARCH ahead of the build — darwin/arm64 for Apple Silicon, darwin/amd64 for Intel, windows/amd64 for Windows — and add CGO_ENABLED=0:

CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=darwin GOARCH=arm64 go build -o frao-advisor .

Step 3 — Register it with Claude Code

Two equivalent ways. The command line is fastest.

The command line

claude mcp add frao-advisor -s user -e DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=sk-your-key-here -- /absolute/path/to/frao-advisor

Three things to replace:

• sk-your-key-here — your actual DeepSeek key.
• /absolute/path/to/frao-advisor — the full path to the binary you just built. On Windows this is the .exe path, for example C:\tools\frao-advisor.exe.
• -s user installs it for every project; leave it off to register it only in the current project.

The -e flag sets the environment variable the server reads. Add more -e flags for the other variables in the table below.

The config file

If you prefer editing JSON, add an entry to the MCP server block of .claude.json in your home directory — ~/.claude.json on Linux and macOS, %USERPROFILE%\.claude.json on Windows — or to a project-local .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "frao-advisor": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/frao-advisor",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "DEEPSEEK_API_KEY": "sk-your-key-here",
        "ADVISOR_MODEL": "deepseek-v4-pro"
      }
    }
  }
}

On Windows the command field points at the .exe, and backslashes must be doubled inside JSON: "command": "C:\\tools\\frao-advisor.exe".

Step 4 — Verify it works

• Run claude mcp list. frao-advisor should appear with the four tools.
• Start Claude Code and run /mcp to confirm the server is connected.
• Ask for a review or a consultation. The first real response confirms the API key works end to end.

Environment variables

It is not Claude-specific

Frao Advisor speaks the Model Context Protocol over stdin and stdout — the same wire protocol every modern agent client speaks. If your client can register a custom MCP server, it can run this binary: Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Cline, and most other AI code editors expose an MCP settings panel. Nothing in the server is Claude-specific. Point your client’s MCP settings at the same binary, set the same environment variables, and the four tools appear. The steps above are written for Claude Code because that is where Frao runs it, but the binary does not care which client launches it.

Troubleshooting

Copy-Paste Install Prompt

Prefer to have your agent do the work? Paste the block below into a Claude Code session. It clones the repository, audits the code, builds the binary, and registers the server — no flags to remember.

Install the frao-advisor MCP server for me.

1. Clone https://github.com/prhymera/frao-advisor into a temporary directory.
2. Before installing anything, audit the cloned code for security vulnerabilities. Read every source file and flag anything suspicious: hardcoded secrets, unsafe command execution, unexpected network calls, or anything that does not match what the README describes. Report your findings before proceeding.
3. If the audit is clean, build the binary for my platform (Linux, macOS, or Windows) and register it as an MCP server named "frao-advisor", using my DeepSeek API key.
4. I will paste my DeepSeek API key when you ask for it — if I do not have one yet, show me how to create one at platform.deepseek.com.
5. Verify the server is registered and that the four tools (frao-expert-list, frao-consult, frao-expert-review, frao-multi-perspective) are available.

The audit step runs before anything is built or registered, so nothing reaches your system until the code has been reviewed.