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Wire SEOCTL into Claude Code in two minutes

A short, practical walkthrough: install the CLI, authenticate, hand the agent its instructions, and watch it run SEO research on its own.

SEOCTL Team · May 12, 2026 · 3 min read

This is the fastest path from “my agent guesses at SEO” to “my agent looks it up.” It takes about two minutes and three commands.

1. Install the CLI

SEOCTL is a single binary. The install script picks the right build for your platform:

curl -fsSL https://seoctl.com/install.sh | sh

Check it landed:

seoctl version

The install guide covers the direct binary download and checksum if you would rather not pipe a script to your shell.

2. Authenticate

SEOCTL runs against a hosted gateway, so it needs an account key. Sign in at seoctl.com/login with a one-time email code, open the dashboard, and create a key. Then:

seoctl auth login seoctl_live_example_key

If your agent runs in a sandbox, use an environment variable instead — it survives container rebuilds and never touches a config file:

export SEOCTL_API_KEY="seoctl_live_example_key"

Confirm the connection:

seoctl status

3. Hand the agent its instructions

This is the step that does the real work. SEOCTL ships its own agent guide — when to call it, which command fits which question, how to keep results small. Append it to your agent’s context file:

seoctl instructions >> CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md is the project context file Claude Code loads automatically. For Codex use AGENTS.md; for Cursor or Windsurf use their project rules file. Append it once — >> is not idempotent. The agent now knows the tool exists and when to reach for it. The full walkthrough is in Agent setup.

What it looks like in practice

Once the instructions are in place, you do not call SEOCTL yourself. The agent does. A normal exchange now looks like this:

You: Draft a title and meta description for the pricing page. Target a keyword that actually has demand.

Agent: Checking demand first.

Behind the scenes the agent runs:

seoctl ideas "seo pricing" --country us --limit 10 --fields keyword,volume,difficulty

It reads ten lines of JSON, picks the keyword with the best volume-to-difficulty ratio, and writes copy around a number it can defend.

Keep it context-friendly

Two habits keep SEOCTL cheap to call. The instruction package teaches both, but they are worth knowing yourself:

  • Small --limit. Ask for ten rows, not a hundred. The agent can always ask again.
  • Tight --fields. Name only the columns the task needs. A SERP lookup for “who ranks here” needs position,domain — not titles, URLs, and snippets.

A disciplined call returns a handful of short JSON lines. That is the difference between a tool an agent calls freely and one it avoids because it floods the window.

That is the whole setup

Install, authenticate, hand over the instructions. From here the agent treats real SEO data as something it can fetch, not something it has to invent. The quickstart and command reference cover every lookup it can now make. The next time it picks a keyword, ask it where the number came from — and enjoy getting a real answer.

Try it

Give your agent real SEO data.

One CLI command for keyword volume, SERP, rank, and competitor research. Start with the $7 trial, then scale with monthly credits.

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