❯KHAELOR

Getting started

From zero to a working agent in your terminal in under two minutes.

Requirements#

  • Node.js ≥ 22 and npm — check with node --version.
  • macOS or Linux (primary targets). Any reasonably modern terminal emulator works; see the terminal compatibility notes.
  • An Anthropic API key — KHAELOR V1 is Anthropic-only by design.

Install#

The one-liner

curl -fsSL https://www.khaelor.sh/install.sh | sh

The installer is a short, readable POSIX shell script. It:

  1. Verifies node exists and is version 22 or newer (with a clear message if not).
  2. Verifies npm exists.
  3. Runs npm install -g https://www.khaelor.sh/khaelor.tgz.
  4. Verifies the install by running khaelor --version.
  5. Prints next steps.

You can read it before running it — it is served as plain text at https://www.khaelor.sh/install.sh. It never uses sudo on its own; if a global install needs elevated permissions it tells you exactly what to do instead.

Manual install with npm

If you prefer to run npm yourself:

npm install -g https://www.khaelor.sh/khaelor.tgz

If npm reports EACCES

A permission error on global install means your npm prefix is owned by root. The clean fix is a user-owned prefix (never sudo npm install if you can avoid it):

mkdir -p ~/.npm-global
npm config set prefix ~/.npm-global
export PATH="$HOME/.npm-global/bin:$PATH"   # add to your shell profile too
npm install -g https://www.khaelor.sh/khaelor.tgz

Set up your Anthropic API key#

KHAELOR reads the key from the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable — and only from the environment. Config files that contain an apiKey-style field are rejected at load time, so a key can never end up committed to a repository.

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

To make it permanent, add that line to your shell profile (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.profile).

KHAELOR never displays the key, never writes it to logs, and redacts it from every debugging view. /config shows only set via environment ✓.

Your first session#

Change into a project directory and start KHAELOR:

cd ~/dev/my-project
khaelor

Startup is nearly instant — four lines of identity and an editable prompt:

 KHAELOR
 ~/dev/my-project · main
 claude-sonnet-4-5 · thinking adaptive
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 What do you want to build?
 ❯ _

If the key is missing you get one calm instruction instead of an error dump:

 KHAELOR
 ~/dev/my-project · main
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 No Anthropic API key found.
 Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or run /config to add one.
 ❯ _

Ask for something real

Type a request and press Enter:

 ❯ why does the login test fail intermittently?

 ▸ Search "login" · 12 matches in 4 files
 ▸ Read tests/auth/login.test.ts · 148 lines
 ▸ Run npm test -- login · exit 1 · 6.8s

 The test races the session cookie: it asserts before the async
 store write resolves. The fix is to await the flush in the fixture.

While the agent works, a single status line shows what is actually happening (● Searching repository · 2.3s), tool calls settle into compact one-liners, and you can keep typing — follow-up messages queue and inject safely.

The first permission prompt

The first time the agent wants to run a command that is not on the safe allowlist, an inline panel appears. Three keys, no typing:

╭─ KHAELOR requests permission ───────────────────╯
│  Run                                              │
│  npm install                                      │
│                                                   │
│  Working directory                                │
│  ~/dev/my-project                                 │
│                                                   │
│  [ Enter ] Allow once                             │
│  [ A ]     Always allow in this project           │
│  [ Esc ]   Deny                                   │
╱───────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Press A once for npm test and it never asks again in this project. Full details: Permissions.

Wrap up

  • /cost — real token usage and dollars for this session.
  • /diff — everything KHAELOR changed (never your pre-existing diff).
  • /quit or Ctrl+D — exit. The session is persisted automatically; /resume picks it back up later.

CLI reference#

InvocationMeaning
khaelorStart the interactive TUI in the current directory.
khaelor --model <id>Start with a specific Anthropic model id or alias for this session.
khaelor --print "prompt"Non-interactive: run one agent turn, print the answer, exit.
khaelor --debugWrite developer logs and performance histograms to ~/.khaelor/logs/. The TUI stays clean.
khaelor --versionPrint the installed version.

Where to go next#