Enterprise fleet deployment

What gets deployed

Two artifacts to approve, deploy and update:

• The Claude Desktop extension (AI-Power-Tools-for-Sparx-EA.mcpb). It is the AI Power Tools MCP Server for Sparx EA, and the one place every Claude surface (Claude Desktop chat, Claude Cowork and Claude Code) gets the server from. One per machine.
• The skills plugin (ai-power-tools, from the novocircle marketplace). It carries only the skills. It has no server and downloads none.

They carry the same release number, but they are delivered and updated separately: updating one does not update the other. Plan to approve and deploy both.

Ways to deploy

The extension is installed on each machine, by dragging the .mcpb file onto Claude Desktop's Extensions pane (Claude Desktop extension). Three ways to deploy the skills plugin exist, depending on how the organization manages its fleet.

Treat a plugin file uploaded one machine at a time as a pilot mechanism. Managed settings configure Claude Code. A machine that also has the plugin on the user's claude.ai account may load the skills twice in the Code tab, so pick one route per machine.

Managed settings

Declare the marketplace and the plugin in the admin-controlled settings source. On Windows that is either of:

• the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\ClaudeCode
• the file C:\Program Files\ClaudeCode\managed-settings.json

Two entries do the work:

• Under extraKnownMarketplaces, add a marketplace named novocircle whose source is the GitHub repository NovoCircle/ai-power-tools-skills. Optionally give it a ref, a git tag or branch, to pin the marketplace to a release you have reviewed. Without a ref, the marketplace follows the repository's default branch.
• Under enabledPlugins, set ai-power-tools@novocircle to true. This turns the plugin on for every user. The key is the plugin name, an at sign, then the marketplace name.

A marketplace on a network location must be declared in user or managed settings. Project and local settings are refused for network sources, so managed settings is the administrator-trusted home for it.

Pinning and updates

The two artifacts update separately. The skills plugin moves forward through its marketplace, and how that happens depends on how the plugin was installed. The server moves forward when someone installs a newer extension. The list below covers each install method by name.

• Plugin installed from the marketplace on a user's claude.ai account. The marketplace added by the steps in Install from the marketplace names no ref, so it follows the default branch of the repository. That branch's entry for the plugin always points to a released, tagged copy of the plugin, never to work in progress, so following it means following the latest release. The marketplace on the account does not sync on its own. A user moves to a newer version by opening claude.ai/customize/plugins, choosing Manage marketplaces, syncing novocircle, then quitting Claude Desktop completely and reopening it. The ea-start-here skill tells the user when the skills are behind.
• Plugin file uploaded in Claude Desktop. Nothing updates automatically. The file you uploaded is the version that stays in place until you upload a newer ai-power-tools.plugin file. The client does not tell you that a newer file exists; the update notice does, and it sends the user to the skills release for the file. Restart Claude after uploading.
• Plugin declared in managed settings, with no ref on the marketplace. Each machine picks up the default branch of the repository when its marketplace is refreshed. That branch always points to the latest released plugin, so each machine moves to a new release when one is published, never to work in progress. Whether the refresh happens without user action depends on the marketplace's auto-update setting in the client, so check it on a pilot machine. A staged update applies only after the plugins are reloaded or Claude is restarted on each machine.
• Plugin declared in managed settings, with a ref. The ref, a git tag or branch, pins the marketplace, and so the plugin, to the release you reviewed. Machines move only when you change the ref in the policy, and then pick the version up on their next marketplace refresh. A staged update applies only after the plugins are reloaded or Claude is restarted on each machine.
• Claude Desktop extension (the server). Nothing updates automatically. The .mcpb file you installed is the version that runs until you install a newer one. The server reports a newer release in ping, get_repository_info and check_for_updates, with the steps for the extension, and never installs it. Download the new file, drag it onto Settings, Extensions, switch the extension off, choose Update, then switch it on again, as described in Updating and uninstalling. Done that way, no restart of Claude Desktop is needed.
• VS Code extension. VS Code does not update it. The .vsix file you installed is the version that runs. Once a day, when eaMcp.checkForUpdates is on, the extension fetches an update manifest and shows a notice if a newer version exists, and EA: Check for Updates checks immediately. The server's update notice also gives the steps for the extension. Installing the newer .vsix from VS Code's Install from VSIX command and reloading the window applies it.

Recommended policy. Pin ref to the release tag you have reviewed, and change it as part of your change process. Changing the ref moves the skills only. Approve and deploy the matching extension release separately, so the skills and the server stay on the same release number.

Network access. Machines need to reach GitHub for the marketplace refresh and for the server's background update checks. A blocked update check is silent and harmless. The extension is installed from a file, so the server starts without network access.

Claude Cowork running in the cloud

Claude Cowork runs in the cloud by default. Local MCP servers do not run in a cloud session, so a cloud session has no AI Power Tools MCP Server for Sparx EA and cannot reach Enterprise Architect. A local session runs on the workstation, with the server from the Claude Desktop extension and the skills from the plugin on the claude.ai account. For deployment this means:

• Plan modeling and analysis for sessions that have the server. A cloud session works with what has already been written to a folder connected on the desktop: exports, Parquet files, generated Power BI projects and reports. Files it opens are processed on Anthropic's servers (Security and data handling).
• A local session still needs Claude Desktop, the extension and a working EA install on the workstation.
• The server must run in the same Windows environment as EA.
• A required setting with no default removes the server from Claude Cowork. The desktop drops, silently and with no visible error, any server whose manifest declares a required setting without a default. Every setting on the extension's Configure screen has a default, and anyone repackaging the extension must preserve that.

Constraints to know before you hit them

• Policy can block marketplaces. An organization can disable third-party marketplaces. Declaring the marketplace in managed settings is then unavailable, and the plugin must arrive through the organization's own provisioning.
• A plugin file uploaded in Claude Desktop does not scale and does not notify.
• Per-user Sparx licenses cap concurrency. One seat is one EA instance. A per-user seat may run on a server or virtual machine, but concurrency stays at one. A deployment must not start a second EA instance against the same model.
• Skills loading twice. A machine that has the plugin on the claude.ai account and also a second copy of the skills (installed through Claude Code's own plugin commands, or copied by the older skills installer) loads every skill twice in the Code tab. Keep one copy of the skills, and keep the extension.
• Read-only mode. To give a group of users the tools but not write access, switch the server to read-only mode. In the Desktop extension it is the Read-only mode setting on the Configure screen, off by default. When it is on, the server refuses every operation that changes the EA repository, including diagram layout operations. Reads, exports to files and reporting databases outside EA still work. The setting is per installation, so turn it on in each user's extension, and test that a write is refused before you rely on it. The plugin has no setting for it. See The AI Power Tools MCP Server for Sparx EA.

Migrating a fleet from the older skills installer

1. Deploy the skills plugin, and keep or install the Desktop extension.
2. On each machine that used the older skills installer, run migrate-to-plugin.ps1 (Moving from an older installation). For unattended use it takes -Force, which skips the confirmation prompt but still prints the list. -WhatIf shows what would be removed and changes nothing.
3. Keep the Desktop extension: it is where the server comes from. Update it if it is behind.
4. Restart Claude and verify (Verifying an installation).

Do not script a delete of %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills. That folder may also hold skills for AI Power Tools for Microsoft Visio, a separate product with its own installer, and skills that users wrote themselves.

Verifying a fleet deployment

On a target machine, after install and a restart, claude plugin list shows ai-power-tools@novocircle enabled at the version you deployed, and claude plugin details ai-power-tools lists the skills. Confirm the extension is installed and enabled under Settings, Extensions. In a Claude Cowork session, confirm both halves: ask for a skill by name, and confirm the EA tools are reachable, which exercises the link back to the workstation. Then run the three checks in Verifying an installation.