Agent skills and setup tools

Cloak Proxy’s MCP server gives an AI assistant close to a hundred tools. Tools alone don’t tell an agent when to reach for them, or in which order. This page covers what fills that gap: agent skills that teach Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents how to use Cloak Proxy, guided setup tools an agent uses to get an app’s traffic flowing, a docs search tool, and the Redact sensitive data before sending to AI switch that keeps credentials out of the conversation.

What’s included

Part	What it does
Agent skills	Seven SKILL.md files: capture setup, debugging a failing request, mocking and intercepting, contract checks, authorization tests, CI recording, and the API client. Agents load one only when a task needs it.
capture_setup	A checklist for capturing a Mac app, a simulator, an iPhone, an Android device, a terminal tool, Docker, Firefox, Java, Electron or Flutter, with each step marked done or not, and the steps Cloak Proxy can do itself.
install_certificate	Installs the root certificate in simulators, copies it to an Android device, opens the trust prompt on the Mac, or writes it to a file.
search_docs	Searches these docs offline and returns the pages, their Markdown versions and the matching sections.
Redaction	Replaces tokens, cookies, keys and passwords in every tool result with REDACTED. On by default.
cloakctl skills, setup and docs-search	The same from Terminal and in CI.

Install the skills

Agent Skills are folders with a SKILL.md file: a short description that tells the agent when the skill applies, and instructions it reads only then. Claude Code, Codex and other agents that support the format pick them up from a skills folder.

1234

The Agent skills card shows which skills are installed for the chosen agent.

1. Which agent to install for
2. Installs or updates every skill
3. An older version is installed
4. The folder the skills go in

×

1. Open the API client with ⇧ ⌘ M (File › MCP…) and scroll to Agent skills. Settings › Advanced › Agent skills › Manage… opens the same card.
2. Under Install for, choose Claude Code (every project, in ~/.claude/skills), Codex (~/.codex/skills), or Other Folder… for any other agent’s skills folder.
3. Click Install 7 Skills. When a new version of Cloak Proxy changes a skill, the card shows Update available next to it and the button becomes Update Skills.
4. Connect the MCP server if you haven’t. The skills call its tools.
5. Restart your agent, or start a new session, so it sees the skills.

Each skill row shows its state:

Mark	Meaning
Green check, Installed	The skill is in the folder and matches this version of Cloak Proxy.
Orange arrows, Update available	The folder has a different version, from an older Cloak Proxy or edited by hand. Updating replaces it.
Dashed circle, Not installed	The skill isn’t in the folder.

Remove deletes the seven SKILL.md files and their folders. Other skills, and any files you added inside a skill’s folder, are left alone. Right-click a skill and choose Copy SKILL.md to paste it somewhere else.

Only for one project

To install the skills for one repository instead of every project, run cloakctl skills install project in the repository’s folder. They go into .claude/skills, which you can commit so everyone on the team gets them.

The skills

Skill	The agent uses it when you…
cloak-proxy-capture-setup	Want to see an app’s, simulator’s, phone’s or tool’s traffic, or Cloak Proxy shows nothing or only encrypted tunnels. Walks through guided setup and the Doctor.
cloak-proxy-debug-traffic	Ask why a request failed, what an app sent, or where a value came from. Finds the request, compares it with a working one, traces values and confirms a fix with a replay.
cloak-proxy-mock-and-intercept	Want a fake response, a slow or failing backend, a header added or a request paused. Picks the right debugging tool, starts from a real request, and offers to clean up afterwards.
cloak-proxy-api-contracts	Ask whether an API matches its OpenAPI spec, want a spec written from traffic, or want contract checks in CI. See Contract checking.
cloak-proxy-authorization-testing	Ask whether one user can see another’s data on an API you own. Runs the authorization matrix and reports leaks.
cloak-proxy-ci-recording	Want to record or check a test suite’s traffic in CI, run tests offline against a recording, or run collections like Newman. See Headless runs and CI.
cloak-proxy-api-client	Want to save, organise, test or run requests in the API client.

The skills tell the agent what not to do as well: ask before replaying writes or turning macOS capture off, never paste captured tokens, never try to trust the certificate for you, and only run authorization tests on systems you’re allowed to test.

Redact sensitive data before sending to AI

Whatever a tool returns becomes part of the conversation, and your assistant sends the conversation to its model provider. With this switch on, which is the default, the MCP server removes credentials from every tool result and resource before the assistant sees them.

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The switch is in Settings › Advanced and on the MCP page.

1. On by default
2. Opens the Agent skills card

×

Turn it off in Settings › Advanced › AI assistants (MCP), or under Use Cloak Proxy from AI assistants on the MCP page. An assistant can read the setting but can’t change it: update_settings doesn’t include it.

What	Becomes
Authorization, Proxy-Authorization, X-Api-Key and other credential headers	The scheme and REDACTED, such as Bearer REDACTED
Cookie and Set-Cookie	Each cookie’s name with REDACTED as its value
Query parameters and JSON or form fields named like password, token, access_token, api_key, secret or session_id	REDACTED
Anything the secret scanner recognises, anywhere: API keys, JWTs, private keys, card numbers	REDACTED
cURL commands from get_request_curl	Credential headers, -u passwords and -b cookies redacted

Request and response bodies stored as text are redacted too, including JSON inside them. Everything else, such as URLs, status codes, other headers, emails and IDs, comes through unchanged so the assistant can still debug. The rules match redaction on export.

Redaction only changes what the assistant sees. Replays and rules still use the real values: replay_request, edit_and_replay (headers you give are merged over the captured ones), rule_from_request and authorization_matrix with from_request all work on the captured request inside Cloak Proxy.

Redacted values can't go back in

If an assistant tries to send a value it only saw as REDACTED, for example a header copied from get_request into edit_and_replay, or a body copied into a Map Local rule, the tool refuses with an error that explains how to keep the original instead. This stops a placeholder from replacing your real token or ending up in a mock.

When the app isn’t running (with cloakctl run, for example), results are always redacted. To turn redaction off for one MCP server, such as a CI job reading its own test traffic, add --no-redact after mcp in its command.

Guided capture setup

capture_setup returns the steps that get one kind of client’s HTTPS traffic into Cloak Proxy, checked against the current state. Ask your assistant something like “set up Cloak Proxy for my app in the iOS Simulator”, and with the capture skill installed it calls capture_setup, does what it can, and tells you exactly what’s left for you.

Target	Covers
mac	Mac apps and browsers through the macOS proxy.
ios_simulator	iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and watchOS Simulators: macOS capture, Xcode, booted simulators and their certificate.
iphone	An iPhone or iPad on Wi-Fi: other devices allowed, the Wi-Fi proxy, the profile and full trust.
android	An emulator or USB device over adb: the device, its proxy, the certificate, and your app’s network security config.
terminal	curl, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, git and other command-line tools: cloakctl run, or proxy variables for a shell.
docker	Containers, through host.docker.internal.
firefox	Firefox’s own certificate store.
java	The JVM’s trust store and proxy flags.
electron	Electron and Chromium apps that ignore the macOS proxy.
flutter	Dart’s HttpClient, which ignores the system proxy.

Pass app (the app’s name, as in the sidebar) and hosts (the API hosts, wildcards allowed) and the checklist also checks that they’re decrypted and that the app’s requests are arriving.

Read the checklist

Each step has an id, a title, a detail and a status:

Status	Meaning
done	Already true.
todo	Not done, and Cloak Proxy can do it: call capture_setup again with apply set to the step’s id.
needs_user	Only you can do it, because it needs your Mac password or happens on the device. The detail and commands say exactly what to do.
info	A tip or an optional step.

next names the first required step that isn’t done, and ready is true once every required step is. The result also has a plain-text version of the checklist and a link to the docs page for the target.

Steps Cloak Proxy can do

apply	What it does
macos-proxy	Turns on macOS capture. Your previous proxy settings come back when it’s turned off.
ssl-proxying	Adds the hosts and app you passed to SSL proxying, and closes their open tunnels so new connections are decrypted.
other-devices	Lets other devices connect, restarting the proxy on every network interface.
recording	Resumes recording.
mac-certificate	Opens Settings › Certificate. You click Install & Trust… and enter your password.
simulator-certificate	Adds the certificate to every booted simulator, or the one in udid, with simctl. No password needed. Relaunch the app afterwards.
android-proxy	Runs adb reverse for the proxy port and sets the device’s global proxy to it, for every ready device or the one in serial.
android-proxy-off	Clears the device’s proxy and the port forward. Do this when you’re done.
android-certificate	Copies the certificate to the device’s Downloads. You install it in the device’s Settings.
environment	Returns export lines for the proxy and certificate variables, for you to paste into a shell.

Some steps change system settings

macos-proxy changes your Mac’s network settings and android-proxy changes the device’s. The capture skill tells the agent to say so before applying them, and your client asks before running the tool unless you’ve auto-approved it. Undo them with set_macos_proxy and android-proxy-off.

Install the certificate

install_certificate installs or exports the root certificate on its own, without the rest of the checklist:

target	What happens
simulator	Adds it to every booted simulator, or the one given as udid (a UDID or a name).
android	Copies it to the Downloads folder of every ready device, or the one given as serial. You finish in Settings › Security › Encryption & credentials › Install a certificate › CA certificate.
mac	Reports whether the Mac already trusts it; if not, opens Settings › Certificate for you to confirm with your password.
file	Writes it as pem (default) or der to path, by default ~/Downloads/cloak-proxy-ca.pem. The result includes its SHA-256 fingerprint.

The certificate file is public and safe to copy. Its private key never leaves ~/Library/Application Support/CloakProxy/. See Root certificate.

Search the docs

search_docs searches an index of every page in these docs, built into Cloak Proxy, so it works offline. It matches titles, headings and descriptions, and understands common words for the same thing (cert and certificate, IDOR and authorization). Each result has the page’s URL, a markdown URL that’s easier for an assistant to read, and the sections that matched, with links straight to them.

Argument	Description
query	A question or keywords, such as install certificate on android. Required.
limit	Most pages to return, 5 by default and at most 20.

For tools that read docs on their own, the whole site is also published for AI:

URL	Contents
https://docs.subcloak.com/llms.txt	An index of every page with a one-line description, in the llms.txt format.
https://docs.subcloak.com/llms-full.txt	Every page in one Markdown file.
Any page’s URL with .md instead of the final /	That page as Markdown.

From the command line

cloakctl has the same features, for scripts, CI and agents that don’t use MCP.

Terminal

cloakctl skills list                    # each skill and whether it's installed for Claude Code
cloakctl skills install claude codex    # install or update for Claude Code and Codex
cloakctl skills install project         # this project only (.claude/skills)
cloakctl skills install ~/my-agent/skills
cloakctl skills show cloak-proxy-debug-traffic
cloakctl skills uninstall claude

cloakctl setup TARGET prints the capture checklist, and --apply STEP does a step. It asks the running app when there is one; without it, it works out what it can itself, which covers simulators, Android devices and terminal variables:

Terminal

cloakctl setup ios_simulator
cloakctl setup ios_simulator --apply simulator-certificate   # no app or password needed
cloakctl setup android --apply android-proxy --serial emulator-5554
cloakctl setup mac --app ShopApp --host api.example.com --json

It exits with 0 when every required step is done, 2 when some are still to do, and 1 on an error, so a CI job can install the certificate in a booted simulator and then check that setup is complete before running UI tests through cloakctl run.

cloakctl docs-search QUERY searches the docs:

$ cloakctl docs-search install certificate on android --limit 1
Android  (Devices and runtimes)
  https://docs.subcloak.com/cloak-proxy/devices/android/
  Capture an Android emulator or USB device with one click through adb, install the Cloak Proxy certificate, and let your app trust user certificates.
  › Install the certificate  https://docs.subcloak.com/cloak-proxy/devices/android/#install-the-certificate

Limits and safety

• Skills are instructions, not permissions. They make an agent better at using Cloak Proxy; your client’s approval prompts still decide which tools run.
• Redaction covers credentials, not all personal data. Names, emails, addresses and IDs stay readable so an assistant can debug. Don’t point an assistant at traffic you aren’t allowed to share with its model provider.
• Some setup steps always need you. Trusting the certificate on the Mac, on an iPhone and on Android, and setting an iPhone’s Wi-Fi proxy, can only be done by you. The tools say exactly what to do.
• Simulators must be booted for simctl to add the certificate, and apps must be relaunched to pick it up. Pinned apps still refuse decrypted traffic; the Doctor tells you when that happens.
• Android setup needs adb from the Android platform tools, and your app’s debug build must trust user certificates.
• The docs index is as current as your copy of Cloak Proxy. For pages added since, read llms.txt.

Related

MCP serverConnect Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor or VS Code to Cloak Proxy.

MCP tools referenceEvery tool and argument, including capture_setup, install_certificate and search_docs.

DoctorWhy an app's traffic isn't showing, with the evidence and a fix.

RedactionWhat is removed from exports and recordings.