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Getting Started

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Ânderson Q. edited this page Jul 22, 2026 · 7 revisions

Getting Started

Install

curl -fsSL https://tron.42labs.io/seed.sh | sh

Clones TRON into ~/.tron and symlinks the tron launcher into ~/.local/bin, so you can run tron from anywhere. It's idempotent (re-run any time to update), never uses sudo, and never edits your shell rc — if ~/.local/bin isn't on your PATH it prints the one line to add. Pin a version with … | TRON_REF=v0.4.2 sh; relocate with TRON_HOME / TRON_BIN.

Prefer to do it by hand? git clone https://github.com/4242labs/tron && cd tron && ./tron start.

Requirements

  • python3 and git.
  • A background-capable agent runtime on PATH — it runs the worker agents TRON dispatches. TRON drives it; you never address it directly.
  • Complete agent personas + the skills they reference in your target project. TRON's worker prompts are deltas over your project's personas, so every persona and skill it points at must be present before you run against real work.
  • Optional: a Telegram bot (TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN, TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID in a gitignored .env) so milestone notes and operator pages ride Telegram. Without it, everything degrades to the terminal.

Run

# Installed on PATH (via the one-liner above); from a clone, use ./tron instead.
tron start                   # run TRON on this repo: a short bootup, then it dispatches
                             #   the fleet and drives the pipeline to done
tron start <project>         # point it at a project path directly
tron --watch                 # long-running: idles, wakes on register work, STOP file exits
tron --selftest              # engine selftests — no agents, no tokens

python3 engine/tron.py runs the same engine (Enter at the prompt uses the built-in demo project).

The bootup asks a short sequence: the scope (all, a phase, or a block range), the worker count, whether to pause for your OK before each merge to trunk, and the model for each role (AIDE, architect, reviewer, worker — each with a recommended default you confirm or override). A non-interactive boot (e.g. the SIM harness) asks nothing and takes defaults.

TRON runs autonomously — not a chat REPL. It prints milestone notes as blocks land and pages you (terminal OPERATOR> prompt, or Telegram) only when it needs a decision. You reach TRON by dropping a file in the project root: parley.md (a question/instruction — the architect answers) or report-request.md (the architect writes a report). Under --watch, a STOP file ends the run.

Validate the engine

Every module ships runnable selftests (no agents, no tokens):

python3 engine/tron.py --selftest      # the engine
python3 engine/gate.py                 # the truth gate (real throwaway git repos)
python3 engine/glossary.py             # vocabulary doc-sync   (--write regenerates docs/GLOSSARY.md)
python3 engine/events.py               # event-vocabulary sync (--write regenerates docs/EVENTS.md)
python3 engine/workflow.py             # flow lint + doc-sync  (--write regenerates docs/WORKFLOW.md)
python3 engine/bpmn.py                 # BPMN doc-sync         (--write regenerates workflow/)
python3 evaluation/harness.py --selftest

The full suite also runs in CI on every push (.github/workflows/engine-ci.yml).

Simulate a run

The evaluation/ suite exercises the whole engine end-to-end against seeded projects — no live tokens needed to see the flow:

python3 evaluation/harness.py project-01 3   # 3 SIMs of PROJECT-01; writes a stats.md
#   --parallel N   seed a project-owned flow with [limits] max_parallel = N
#   --ablate ARM   run with ONE invariant disabled (truth_gate | judge_isolation | architect_first)

Templates live in evaluation/templates/ (project-01/02/03 small→large, project-04 scale rung, exp-* fixtures). Run outputs write under evaluation/ and are gitignored.

File layout

tron/
├── tron                # launcher
├── engine/             # the deterministic engine + workflow.toml + prompts/
├── docs/               # GENERATED reference (GLOSSARY · EVENTS · WORKFLOW) + voice.md
├── workflow/           # GENERATED interactive BPMN diagram
└── evaluation/         # the SIM validation suite (harness + templates)

A project you point TRON at brings its own committed core docs — context.md, principles.md, playbook.md, an optional own workflow.toml, policy.md, blocks/*.md, and the engine-written pipeline.md register. TRON reads the project's pipeline; it owns no pipeline and no agents of its own.

See also: Commands · Configuration · Operations.

TRON

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