overview getting started

Getting started

Prime Agent runs on Node.js and TypeScript, with a Python runtime only for the IPython kernel. The web UI needs pnpm in addition to npm.

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 22.8.0
• npm >= 11.10 (enforces the 7-day minimum release age for dependency updates; older npm silently ignores it)
• pnpm >= 11 (only for the Qredence UI under web/)
• Git (required by the public-repository installer)
• Python >= 3.10 (only needed for the IPython runtime, prime-agent-runtime)

Install from the public repository

The quickest path is the repository-owned installer. Make an empty directory and run it; the repository must be public for the raw GitHub URL to work:

mkdir -p fleet-prime-agent && cd fleet-prime-agent && \
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Qredence/fleet-prime-agent/main/install.sh | sh

The installer clones or reuses the checkout in the current directory, installs the root npm workspace and the web/ pnpm workspace, builds the production web runtime, and links the prime-agent command globally. No PrimeIntellect account or repository access is required.

Run the built web frontend and backend from any project directory:

cd /path/to/project
prime-agent web

prime-agent web uses the current directory as its workspace and binds to 127.0.0.1:3000 by default. Override with --host <host> --port <port> --cwd <directory>.

Install from source

npm ci                    # Install Prime Agent (packages/*)
pnpm install --dir web    # Install Qredence UI

Web chat

pnpm --dir web --filter @prime-agent/web dev

Open http://127.0.0.1:3000. Install the Python runtime shim for full kernel functionality:

pip install -e prime-agent-runtime

On first launch, open Settings → Providers (or run /login) to add an API key or subscription provider, then pick a model in the composer. The Python kernel runtime is set up automatically on first invocation; set PRIME_AGENT_KERNEL_PYTHON to use an existing Python environment with ipykernel.

Terminal agent

Run from source (callable from any directory; preserves the caller's working directory):

/path/to/prime-agent/prime-agent.sh

Useful commands:

prime-agent agents                   # Browse running, idle, and saved sessions
prime-agent attach <agent>           # Reattach to a running session
prime-agent --resume <path|id>       # Resume a saved session
prime-agent status                   # Inspect background service state
prime-agent doctor [--fix]           # Inspect or repair background services
prime-agent update [--force]         # Update Prime Agent
prime-agent shutdown [--force]       # Stop every agent, worker, and background service

Authenticate with an API key environment variable (for example export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...) or with /login inside the session.

Build and test

npm run build            # Build packages/tui, ai, agent, coding-agent in order
npm run build:web:release  # Build the production web runtime (scripts/build-web-release.mjs)
npm run check            # Format, lint, type-check, installer/browser-smoke/rendering checks (does not run tests)

Run focused tests from a package root (never npm test at the repo root):

cd packages/coding-agent
npx tsx ../../node_modules/vitest/dist/cli.js --run test/specific.test.ts

For the web workspace:

pnpm --dir web test                    # All web tests
pnpm --dir web --filter @prime-agent/web test:e2e   # Playwright end-to-end

CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs build + check, unit tests per package (coding-agent tests are sharded 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 plus process and kernel suites), and web tests.

Related pages

• Architecture, how the pieces fit together
• Development workflow, branch, code, test, PR cycle
• Installer, how install.sh works
• Providers and models, authentication options