Requirements

Required

Compatible agent host

The /legal skills are platform-neutral Markdown prompts. Use Claude Code or another compatible agent host that can load SKILL.md files from ~/.claude/skills/.

No API key is required for the /legal commands themselves — they run on the model access provided by your agent host.

Git

Required to clone the repository (the one-line installer also clones from GitHub). Not needed if you download a release archive and run the installer from it.

git --version

Optional

Node.js 18+

Needed to build and run the MCP servers (uk-legislation and caselaw) and to run the repository's npm audit scripts. The MCP servers query public government APIs and require no API key.

node --version   # must be 18.0.0 or higher

The /legal commands work without Node.js; you only need it for live legislation and caselaw lookups via the MCP servers and for the audit tooling.

Python 3 with reportlab

Only needed for the /legal report-pdf command, which generates professional PDF reports.

python3 --version          # Python 3
pip3 install reportlab     # PDF generation library

If Python or reportlab is missing, all other skills work normally --- only PDF export is unavailable.

Supported platforms

Platform	Status
macOS	Fully supported
Linux	Fully supported
Windows (WSL)	Supported via Windows Subsystem for Linux
Windows (native)	Not supported --- use WSL

Summary

Prerequisite	Purpose	Required?
Compatible agent host	Run /legal commands	Yes
Git	Clone the repository	Yes (if not using a release archive)
Node.js 18+	Build the MCP servers and run audit scripts	Optional
Python 3	PDF report generation	Optional
reportlab	PDF rendering	Optional