Quick Start

This guide walks you through creating your first agent and chatting with it.

1. Initialize a Workspace

duragent init
# Follow the interactive setup

This creates a .duragent/ directory with a starter agent and configuration.

2. Authenticate

Set up credentials for your LLM provider:

# Option A: API key via environment variable
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your-key

# Option B: OAuth login (Anthropic only — tokens auto-refresh)
duragent login anthropic

See Authentication for details on all providers.

3. Chat with Your Agent

duragent chat --agent <YOUR_AGENT_NAME>

The server starts automatically. Type your message and press Enter.

Press Ctrl+C or type /exit to detach from the session.

4. Attach to a Session Later

Sessions are durable — detaching doesn’t lose your conversation. Reconnect at any time:

duragent attach --list       # List attachable sessions
duragent attach SESSION_ID   # Reconnect to existing session

What’s Next?

• Learn about the Agent Format to customize your agents
• Add Tools to give your agent capabilities
• Set up Telegram or Discord to chat from messaging platforms
• Configure Memory for persistent agent knowledge