crossmatrix

Multidimensional House of Quality (QFD) — cross-dimensional relationship matrices for structured trade-off and requirement analysis. A Rust workspace: crossmatrix (engine) + crossmatrix-mcp (MCP server). Part of Praxec.

Install

npm / npx (recommended for MCP clients)

npx -y @matthew-cochran/crossmatrix --version
claude mcp add crossmatrix --scope user -- npx -y @matthew-cochran/crossmatrix

The @matthew-cochran/crossmatrix package is a small launcher: on first run it downloads the release binary for your platform, verifies it against the release's checksums.sha256, caches it, and runs it over stdio (signals are forwarded; stdout belongs to MCP). CROSSMATRIX_MCP_BINARY points it at a binary you installed yourself. The package also bundles the agent skills.

Prebuilt binary (no Rust, Cargo, or Git required)

# Linux / macOS
curl -fsSL https://github.com/praxec/crossmatrix/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://github.com/praxec/crossmatrix/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

The installer resolves your OS and CPU architecture, downloads the matching release asset, verifies its SHA-256 against the release's checksums.sha256, extracts it safely, and atomically installs the binary into a user-local managed directory ($HOME/.local/bin on Linux/macOS, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\crossmatrix-mcp on Windows). It never compiles from source and fails loudly on an unsupported OS/architecture.

Pin a specific release instead of the current latest stable:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/praxec/crossmatrix/releases/latest/download/install.sh \
  | sh -s -- --version v0.3.1

The installer scripts are published as release assets alongside the binaries.

Or download the archive directly. Every release publishes a checksums.sha256 and a machine-readable release-manifest.json listing each target, asset, digest, version, and source SHA:

"Native CI" means each asset is built and its MCP initialize/tools/list handshake smoke-tested on that platform's own runner. No other CPU/OS combination is claimed; unsupported platforms are rejected rather than silently cross-compiled.

Updates

Re-run the installer to update. Only the binary in the managed install directory is replaced (atomically); application state and configuration live outside that directory and are never overwritten.

From source

cargo build --release

produces the crossmatrix-mcp MCP stdio server.

Related MCP server: uml-atlas

Repo-committed models: .crossmatrix/

crossmatrix keeps a model as three documents linked by stable id@version (ADR-0004), plus an append-only audit log, in a directory you commit:

crossmatrix-mcp init            # creates .crossmatrix/ in the current directory
crossmatrix-mcp check           # validates every document and cross-reference

.crossmatrix/
  config/<configId>@<version>.json            # methodology: scales, relations, contractions
  dimensions/<dimensionSetId>@<version>.json  # dimensions and their members
  state/<stateId>.json                        # cells/observations + revision
  audit/<stateId>.jsonl                       # one line per accepted mutation (merge=union)

Writes are canonical JSON (sorted keys, 2-space indent, trailing newline) and atomic, so diffs stay small. Findings are computed on every read and never stored. check exits non-zero with path-specific diagnostics (for example state/demo.json: cells[3].to: unknown member 'x' in dimension 'dim_part'); run it in CI.

The server finds its store from, in order: CROSSMATRIX_DIR, the nearest ancestor directory containing .crossmatrix/, $XDG_DATA_HOME/crossmatrix (or ~/.local/share/crossmatrix), then ./crossmatrix-state. model.status reports the resolved root.

CLI

Tools

Two MCP tools, crossmatrix.command (writes) and crossmatrix.query (reads). Every response, including a rejection, carries links to the legal next ops; a rejection's structuredContent is {ok: false, error: {code, message}, links}.

Writes (crossmatrix.command)

{"request": {"schemaVersion": "0.2.0", "requestId": "r-17", "modelId": "checkout",
  "expectedVersion": 16, "actor": {"actorType": "llm", "persona": "observer"},
  "op": {"kind": "observe", "relationId": "rel_need_char", "from": "need_fast",
         "to": "char_latency", "observation": "strong", "provenanceClass": "normative"}}}

Observation-only: a numeric member weight is accepted only with sourceRef.system (a deterministic import), and a measuredValue only with provenanceClass: observed plus a sourceRef. expectedVersion is an optimistic lock; requestId makes a command idempotent, also across restarts. Each accepted mutation appends one audit line {ts, requestId, actor, op, beforeVersion, afterVersion, summary}.

The legacy one-call flow still works: a command carrying a full model imports it into the session (in memory) for the queries that follow.

Reads (crossmatrix.query)

model.status, describe, slice, trace, explain, coverage, gaps.orphans, gaps.next, stale, conflicts, analyze.marginalize, analyze.contract, analyze.findings, validate, report, export.

• report {relationId?} returns a Markdown House of Quality: weights, the relationship matrix, the correlation roof (a self-relation), technical importance, targets (attributes.target), coverage and findings with contributors. Without relationId it covers every relation.

• export {format: model|report|findings} returns the merged model JSON.

• conflicts {relationId?} lists valence-by-separation tensions and conflicts.

• trace and slice accept a member id or a sourceRef.uri, page with limit/cursor, and with rollup: true roll leaf observations up a contains hierarchy (a directory implements a feature if any file under it does).

• stale {hashes?, readFiles?} compares stored source hashes with current ones (readFiles hashes file:// sources inside the project) and returns the changed members plus every cell that references them, paged.

AI assist (optional, off by default)

Two optional cargo features add model-backed helpers. Neither is in the default build or the release binaries unless you build with them, both need an explicit opt-in and a key, and neither ever writes an analysis number: suggestions are recorded as proposed observations that count in no analysis until a human or LLM confirms the cell with an ordinary observe.

cargo build --release --features jev,rig
export CROSSMATRIX_ASSIST=jev,rig            # explicit opt-in (or `all`)
export TYPESAFE_JEV_API_KEY=...              # or OPENROUTER_API_KEY (also used by rig)

Configuration: Jev uses https://api.typesafe.ai with jev-latest when TYPESAFE_JEV_API_KEY is set, otherwise OpenRouter with ~typesafe/jev-latest; override with CROSSMATRIX_JEV_BASE_URL, CROSSMATRIX_JEV_MODEL and CROSSMATRIX_JEV_TIMEOUT_SECS. Rig uses OpenRouter with CROSSMATRIX_RIG_MODEL (default openai/gpt-5-mini) and CROSSMATRIX_RIG_TIMEOUT_SECS. Calls are bounded (timeout, cells per call, token budget) and every response reports usage. Without the feature, opt-in or key, the query returns {ok: false, status: "assist_unavailable", reason, links}.

Agent skills

crossmatrix ships Agent Skills that teach an agent the method and common uses. Install them into a project (or --user) for one client or all:

npx -y @matthew-cochran/crossmatrix skills install --target claude --project .
crossmatrix-mcp skills install --target all --project .      # .claude/skills + .agents/skills

Targets: claude, codex, cursor, copilot, gemini, agents-md, all. A .crossmatrix-skills.json manifest records file hashes, so re-installs update only files you have not edited (--force overwrites them) and uninstall removes only unmodified files. The installer never edits MCP configuration; it prints the registration command instead (claude mcp add crossmatrix --scope user -- npx -y @matthew-cochran/crossmatrix).

Using it with Praxec

This is an MCP tool used by Praxec packs. The easiest way to get it — and a workflow pack that uses it — up and running is the one-command setup:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/praxec/packs/main/setup.sh | bash

See the pack registry for this tool's provider coordinates (container image / release binary) and which packs depend on it.

Releasing

Maintainers: see docs/releasing.md (version bump, dev → main, tag, scripts/npm-release.sh, crates.io, rollback).

License

Apache-2.0.