Quickstart

This guide gets you from zero to a working agent in under a minute.

1. Start the daemon

The daemon manages agents, tools, and connections in the background:

crabtalk daemon

On first run, it creates the default configuration at ~/.crabtalk/crabtalk.toml and scaffolds the directory structure.

2. Attach to an agent

In another terminal, connect to the default "crabtalk" agent:

crabtalk attach

You're now in an interactive REPL. Type a message and press Enter to chat.

3. Use a specific agent

Connect to a named agent:

crabtalk attach --agent my-agent

Agent definitions live in ~/.crabtalk/agents/ as Markdown files with YAML frontmatter, or as [agents.*] sections in crabtalk.toml. See agents for details.

4. Configure a model

By default, CrabTalk uses DeepSeek. To use a different provider, edit ~/.crabtalk/crabtalk.toml:

[crabtalk]
model = "deepseek"

[model.deepseek]
model = "deepseek-chat"
api_key = "${DEEPSEEK_API_KEY}"

See providers for all supported models and API standards.

What's next

• Configuration — customize directories, models, and services
• Agents — understand agent lifecycle and config
• Built-in tools — filesystem and shell access