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Get your first AI agent teammate up and running in minutes. No coding required.

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Prerequisites

  • Node.js 22+ — Dash uses ESM and modern language features requiring Node 22 or later
  • An LLM API key — for example, sign up at console.anthropic.com for an Anthropic key

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Getting Your Anthropic API Key

Dash works with Claude from Anthropic out of the box. To use it, you need an Anthropic account and an API key. Step 1: Go to console.anthropic.com and create an account. Step 2: Once logged in, click API Keys in the left sidebar. Step 3: Click Create Key, give it a name (e.g. “Dash”), and copy the key — it starts with sk-ant-.
Keep your API key private. Never share it or commit it to version control. Dash stores it encrypted on your machine.
Billing: Anthropic charges per token used. Running agents occasionally costs a few cents per session. New accounts receive free credits to get started.

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Installation

1

Clone and install

2

Build all packages

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Launch Desktop

Desktop is the recommended way to manage your agents. It gives you a desktop app where you can deploy agents, chat with them, and connect them to messaging platforms.
The app opens automatically. On first launch, the setup wizard walks you through three quick steps.

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First-run setup wizard

1

HQ start

Desktop spawns the background HQ process automatically. You’ll see a brief spinner while it comes up. The HQ’s management and chat tokens are stored in the OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager / libsecret on Linux) — never in plaintext files.
2

Pick a provider

Choose Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google. You can add more providers later from Settings → AI Providers.
3

Paste your API key

Paste your API key. Desktop sends it directly to the HQ’s encrypted credential store (AES-256-GCM, at ~/.dash/gateway/credentials.enc). The key is masked in the input field.
When the wizard finishes, you’re in Desktop proper.

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Deploy your first agent

Now that your provider is connected, you can deploy an agent.
1

Open the Squad page

Click Squad in the sidebar, then click Deploy. This opens the deployment wizard.
2

Choose a name

Give your agent a descriptive name, like “assistant” or “code-reviewer”.
3

Select a model

Pick the model your agent will use. If you are not sure, Claude Sonnet 4 is a great starting point — it balances speed and capability. The model dropdown is populated live from the provider’s API, filtered through a curated allow-list.
4

Write a system prompt

Tell your agent who it is and how to behave. For example:
5

Pick tools

Select which tools your agent can use. A good starter set is bash, read, and write. See Tools for the full list.
6

Deploy

Click Deploy. The HQ creates the agent in-process with its own workspace at ~/.dash/workspaces/<agent-id>/.
Your agent appears in the agents list. Click it to check that the status shows “running”.

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Chat with your agent

Open the Chat tab, start a new conversation, select your agent, and type a message. You will see the agent thinking, using tools, and responding in real time. Your HQ keeps the canonical conversation history. When Desktop and Dash for iOS are paired to the same HQ, both show the same conversations, titles, messages, running turns, and deletions. Android remains a legacy, non-resumable client in this release, so its private chat sessions do not join that shared list. Conversations created by older Desktop versions remain available under On this Mac. They stay on that computer and are not uploaded automatically. If the HQ is offline, previously synced conversations remain readable from cache, but creating, sending, renaming, and deleting wait until the HQ reconnects. That is it — your first agent is deployed and ready to work.

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Connect a phone or tablet

In Desktop, open Settings → Devices. The Pair Device card links the Dash Android app over your local network, or through Remote Access after you enable it — scan the displayed QR code in the app. Dash for iOS connects differently: enable Remote Access, then open the app and sign in with your Dash account to choose your HQ. The native iPhone and iPad client supports shared, resumable history and agent administration — see Dash for iPhone and iPad for sign-in, chat, agent-management, offline, and removal steps. The Android app continues to provide its legacy private chat and monitoring experience until its separate conversation-sync migration.

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Other ways to run Dash

Desktop is the recommended approach, but you can also run the HQ on its own.
  • HQ standalone — run the HQ headlessly (on a server or in Docker) and manage it through its Management API: npm run gateway
See Configuration for the available flags and the Management API for managing agents programmatically.

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Next steps

Squad

Learn how agents work and how to configure them.

Deploy Your First Squad Member

Detailed walkthrough of the deploy wizard.

Messaging Apps

Connect your agents to Telegram, WhatsApp, and more.