Quick Start

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If you use Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex CLI — run npx sysknife-setup and follow the wizard. See MCP Server for the full guide. You can skip this page entirely.

Step 1 — Install

Prerequisites: Rust stable (rustup update stable) and an LLM provider (see Step 2).

git clone https://github.com/lacs-project/sysknife
cd sysknife
make build
sudo make install
sudo systemctl enable --now sysknife-daemon

ℹī¸ Fedora / Silverblue

Ubuntu 24.04 is validated with 65/65 stories on a live VM. Ubuntu 22.04 and 26.04 have smoke-test coverage. Fedora Atomic uses the rpm-ostree action family and requires a current Silverblue 44 validation run for each release. Plain Fedora remains experimental. See distro support.

Step 2 — Choose an LLM

Pick one. No account needed for Ollama.

Ollama — local, fully offline, recommended for homelabs:

ollama pull qwen3:8b        # runs well on 16 GB RAM
# SysKnife auto-detects Ollama when no cloud key is set

Anthropic:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

OpenAI / Gemini / others — see Configuration for the full list of supported providers.

Optional config file (~/.config/sysknife/config.toml):

[llm]
provider = "ollama"
model    = "qwen3:8b"

Step 3 — Run

# Safe first run — plan only, nothing executes
sysknife --dry-run "show disk usage"

# Full run with the daemon
sysknife "what packages do I have installed as layers?"

⚠ī¸ Daemon required for execution

--dry-run works anywhere and is a great way to test the planner without installing the daemon. Full execution requires sysknife-daemon running as root (enabled in Step 1).

That's it. The planner proposes a typed plan, you approve, the daemon executes.

Try without installing anything

On any Linux machine with an API key:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
cargo run --bin sysknife -- --dry-run "show disk usage"

Plans the intent and prints the result. No daemon, no root, no installation. Useful for evaluating the planner or running in CI.