Installation

After this page, the ak command will be available in your terminal and ready for first-run setup.

Supported environments

AgentKit publishes 64-bit builds for:

Kit Hooks run on Node.js, so ak needs Node.js 20.11 or newer on the machine. It resolves Node from PATH first, then from the standard install locations for your platform, so an existing install usually needs no configuration. When no suitable Node.js is found, ak reports the gap and offers to install Node.js LTS through the system package manager it detects — winget, choco, or scoop on Windows, brew on macOS, and apt, dnf, pacman, or snap on Linux.

That install never runs unattended: it requires your explicit consent every time, including in CI, where you grant it with AK_AUTO_INSTALL_NODE=1. Without consent ak fails with the manual install command for your package manager instead of proceeding. After installing, ak re-checks the resolved version against the 20.11 floor rather than trusting that the package manager shipped a recent enough build.

You also need a supported coding runtime installed and signed in before you can run a kit Skill there. Released registry targets include Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, DeepSeek Harness (dsh), Grok, Pi (pi), and Oh My Pi (omp). Pi, DeepSeek Harness, Grok, and Oh My Pi are installable Kit projection targets; DeepSeek Harness, Grok, and Oh My Pi also support direct Skill dispatch through ak run --target dsh, ak run --target grok, and ak run --target omp. The registry also publishes a distribution-only cloud-harness package for the Cloud Harness MCP harness; it is not a local install target. AgentKit account authentication is a separate step.

Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://agentkit.best/install.sh | sh

irm https://agentkit.best/install.ps1 | iex

Both commands install from the stable channel unless AK_CHANNEL is set. From Windows cmd.exe, invoke the same PowerShell installer with:

powershell -NoProfile -Command "irm https://agentkit.best/install.ps1 | iex"

How the installer verifies the release

The official installer refuses unverified downloads. For a channel pinned in the installer, it checks the archive byte size and SHA-256 digest against the immutable values carried by the installer. For an exact version, a custom release base, or another unpinned selection, it uses a hash-pinned verifier to authenticate the signed channel and release metadata, then checks the selected archive before returning its bytes.

If only the primary domain is filtered, retry the byte-identical official entry point without changing the verification chain:

curl -fsSL https://releases.agentkit.best/install.sh | sh

irm https://releases.agentkit.best/install.ps1 | iex

If the same object remains blocked, keep endpoint protection on and ask your administrator to review the refusal.

Verify the installation

Open a new terminal if the installer changed PATH, then run:

ak --version
ak doctor --json

You should see the installed version. In the doctor result, inspect data.healthy; a completed ak doctor --json normally exits 0 even when a health check fails. Use ak doctor --exit-on-fail when the process exit code must gate a script. If ak is not found, add the reported install directory to PATH and restart the terminal.

Select another release channel

The default is stable. To select the beta release pin embedded in the installer through the same verified path:

curl -fsSL https://agentkit.best/install.sh | AK_CHANNEL=beta sh

$env:AK_CHANNEL = 'beta'; irm https://agentkit.best/install.ps1 | iex

For this release, the embedded Beta bootstrap pin is 2.18.0-beta.2. That pin is selected at build time and is not necessarily the newest Beta release shown in the docs. AK_VERSION pins a semantic version, and AK_INSTALL_DIR changes the target directory. Leave both unset unless you need that control.

Run first-time setup

ak onboard

ak onboard runs setup if needed, signs you in on a TTY, confirms kit and runtime unless you passed --kit or --target, then installs a kit. It does not replace ak setup for later preference edits. Continue with Onboarding for login methods, kit targets, and recovery.

ak setup

Setup detects available runtime login state and atomically updates ~/.agentkit/config.yaml. Basic setup configures enabled adapters, the default kit, and telemetry without copying runtime credentials. It does not sign you in to AgentKit and does not install kit content.

Update or remove AgentKit safely

Use ak self-update --check to check for a newer CLI without applying it. See Updating ak before switching channels or updating an existing installation.

Before removing anything, preview the managed cleanup that matches what you installed:

ak kit uninstall engineer --dry-run
ak uninstall --dry-run

The first command previews removal of Engineer Kit. The second previews removal of the current AgentKit-managed project; it is not a CLI uninstaller. Re-run the appropriate command with --yes only after reviewing its plan. Both preserve unknown or modified files by default and snapshot supported changes before deletion. A completed uninstall preview exits 3 by design; a successful applied removal exits 0.

Finally, run ak logout to remove the local CLI session first. Remote revocation of a renewable email session is best-effort, so a registry outage does not leave the machine locally signed in. Then delete only the installed binary (~/.local/bin/ak or %USERPROFILE%\bin\ak.exe). Do not delete ~/.agentkit or %USERPROFILE%\.agentkit wholesale unless you have reviewed and no longer need its project registry, App device session, caches, or recovery snapshots.