Onboarding

First-run setup after install — authentication, kits, the desktop app, updates, backups, and feedback.

Once ak is installed, this checklist gets you to a working setup and shows where your data lives.

Confirm the install

ak --version
ak doctor --json

ak doctor reports environment and configuration health. Use --json when you want machine-readable output to attach to a support request.

Authenticate

ak login
ak whoami --json
ak licenses --json

Two checks are separate: sign-in identifies you, while kit entitlement controls which kits you can download and install. If a kit you expect is missing from ak licenses, your account has not been granted it yet — stop before trying to install it.

Install a kit

ak kit init engineer --target claude-code --global

You can install into more than one runtime (for example Claude Code and Codex). See Installing kits for targets and skill selection.

Desktop app (optional)

The desktop app opens behind a license gate: a fresh launch shows activation and support until a valid app license unlocks the shell. The app license (unlocking the desktop shell) and kit entitlement (controlling kit downloads) are independent — signing in with an API key or email alone does not unlock the desktop app.

Updating

Check without applying, then apply on the stable channel. Manual apply requires --yes:

ak self-update --check --channel stable --json
ak self-update --channel stable --yes

To review what changed before updating:

ak changelog --since-current --channel stable

Backups and rollback

AgentKit preserves unknown and user-modified files during ordinary operations. Tracked destructive writes require explicit confirmation and take a recovery snapshot first. ak backups restore rolls back project/lifecycle state, not the installed binary:

ak backups list --json
ak backups restore --latest     # restore the last pre-change state snapshot

To roll back the binary itself, reinstall the previous release (for example with AK_VERSION=<tag> on the installer). See Updating ak.

Feedback

File feedback directly from the CLI:

ak feedback --type bug --title "Short title" --body "What happened" --yes
ak feedback --type feature --title "Request" --motivation "Why it matters"

Include your OS and architecture, the command or screen involved, and the release tag. Attach a redacted ak doctor summary with --attach-diagnostics only when support asks — full diagnostics stay on your machine.

Never share raw environment files, provider configuration, private keys, license keys, or session transcripts. Use ak diagnostics export --json to produce a redacted bundle before sending evidence.

Known limits

Project creation, destructive lifecycle actions, and plan mutations are CLI-only; the local dashboard (ak gui / ak config) is read-only for those.
Non-loopback dashboard binds require an auth token.
There is no telemetry — no analytics SDK and no usage beacon.

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