Observal supports seven IDEs / AI coding tools. The depth of support varies — some have native OpenTelemetry export and integrate almost transparently; others need hook-based workarounds until their upstream catches up.
| IDE | Skills | Superpowers | Hook bridge | MCP servers | Rules | Steering files | OTLP telemetry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | ✅ | — | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | — | ✅ |
| Kiro CLI | — | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cursor | — | — | — | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
| Gemini CLI | — | — | — | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
| VS Code | — | — | — | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
| Codex CLI | — | — | — | — | ✅ | — | — |
| Copilot | — | — | — | — | ✅ | — | — |
| Feature | What it means for Observal |
|---|---|
| Skills | Installable skill packages from the registry — Claude Code's SKILL.md format |
| Superpowers | Kiro's equivalent — bundled extensions (.kiro/skills/, steering, hooks) |
| Hook bridge | IDE fires lifecycle events that Observal consumes (via HTTP or shell curl) |
| MCP servers | IDE supports MCP; observal doctor patch --shim can instrument them |
| Rules | IDE loads a text file for system instructions (AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md) |
| Steering files | Kiro's expanded form — YAML-frontmatter markdown with inclusion modes |
| OTLP telemetry | IDE natively exports OpenTelemetry traces and logs |
Source of truth: observal_cli/constants.py.
- Claude Code — the most complete integration. Use this as the reference for what "fully supported" means.
- Kiro — also fully supported, but works around the lack of native OTLP via hooks.
- The others — MCP-only or rules-only at the moment. Contributions welcome.
Two paths:
- If it supports MCP —
observal scanwill discover it andobserval doctor patch --shimwill instrument it. Open an issue noting the IDE and its MCP config path. - If it supports OTEL — point
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINTathttp://localhost:8000and traces will flow directly to the API over HTTP/JSON.
Either way, GitHub Discussions is the place to surface it.