Quick Start

Get up and running in under 2 minutes.

Prerequisites

macOS (arm64 or x64)
tmux (brew install tmux)
Bun is installed automatically by the install script

Install

$ curl -fsSL https://ytarasova.github.io/ark/install.sh | bash

Or clone and install manually:

$ git clone https://github.com/ytarasova/ark.git
$ cd ark
$ make install

Your First Session

1. Launch the TUI

$ ark tui

This opens the terminal dashboard with 6 tabs: Sessions, Agents, Tools, Flows, History, Compute.

2. Create a Session

Press n in the Sessions tab. Fill in:

Name: A short description (e.g., "add-auth")
Repo: Path to your repository
Compute: local (default)
Flow: bare for a single agent, default for full SDLC pipeline

3. Dispatch

Press Enter on the session to dispatch the agent. The agent launches in a tmux session and starts working.

4. Monitor

Watch live output in the detail pane (right side)
Press a to attach directly to the agent's terminal
Press t to send messages to the running agent

5. Headless Mode (CI/CD)

$ ark exec --repo . --summary "Fix the auth bug" --flow bare
$ ark exec --repo . --summary "Add tests" --timeout 600 --output json

Note: The bare flow runs a single worker agent with no planning or review stages. Use default for the full planner → implementer → reviewer pipeline.

What's Next?

Read Core Concepts to understand flows, agents, and stages
See the TUI Guide for all keyboard shortcuts
Check CLI Reference for full command documentation
Set up Compute Providers for Docker or EC2

Tip: Run ark tui alongside your editor. The detail pane streams agent output in real time so you can watch the agent work without leaving your terminal.