Quickstart

This guide takes you from zero to an agent session you can drive from your phone or browser. Budget five minutes.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or newer and npm on the machine that will run agents.
• A device for the other end: the web app at app.consortium.dev works everywhere.

1. Install the CLI

Install script

curl -fsSL https://api.consortium.dev/install | sh

Detects your release channel and installs the channel-correct package.

npm

npm install -g consortium

Verify:

consortium --version

2. Sign in

consortium auth login

By default this opens your browser to authenticate. Two alternatives:

consortium auth login --mobile   # scan a QR code with the mobile app
consortium auth login --email    # magic code sent to your email

Signing in registers this machine to your account and installs and starts the daemon automatically (a launchd agent on macOS, a systemd unit on Linux).

Windows

The daemon runs for the current login session only — it does not survive a sign-out or reboot. Re-run consortium auth login after restarting.

Check that everything is healthy:

consortium auth status
consortium daemon status

3. Run your first agent

Each agent is its own subcommand. Run these from the project directory you want the agent to work in:

consortium claude    # Claude Code
consortium codex     # Codex
consortium gemini    # Gemini CLI
consortium grok      # Grok
consortium pi        # Pi
consortium code      # Consortium Code (opencode)

The session appears in the app immediately — open app.consortium.dev (or the desktop app) on any signed-in device to watch, approve permission requests, and send prompts.

4. Bring your own keys (optional)

Agent CLIs use whatever credentials they normally use. To store provider API keys with Consortium so agents can run without per-tool setup:

consortium connect claude    # Anthropic API key
consortium connect codex     # OpenAI API key
consortium connect gemini    # Gemini API key

See BYOK for how keys are stored and injected.

If something breaks

consortium doctor          # diagnose common problems
consortium doctor clean    # kill runaway agent/daemon processes
consortium daemon logs     # print the path of the latest daemon log
consortium reset           # last resort: wipe local state (--keep-auth)

Next steps

• Concepts — the nouns: agents, sessions, machines, workspaces.
• Running an agent — deeper walkthrough.
• External API — drive sessions programmatically.