Getting Started

1. Install Go

Download and install Go from go.dev/dl (1.21 or later required).

Verify it works:

go version
# go version go1.21.x ...

Windows users

After installing Go, restart your terminal so go is available in PATH.

2. Install Wick CLI

The Wick CLI scaffolds and builds projects (wick init, wick build, wick dev). Install via Go:

go install github.com/yogasw/wick@v0.17.0

Verify:

wick version

Just want to run AI agents without building tools?

Skip the CLI and grab the pre-built wick-agent runtime binary directly — see Run AI Agents (no Go) in the README. That binary ships pre-built for Linux / macOS / Windows / Termux via a curl installer; the Wick CLI here is for scaffolding new projects.

3. Init a project

wick init my-app

This scaffolds my-app/, runs go mod tidy, and downloads Tailwind + templ automatically.

my-app/
├── main.go          # register tools, jobs, and connectors here
├── AGENTS.md        # AI agent instructions (auto-included)
├── wick.yml         # task runner config
├── tools/
│   ├── convert-text/   # example tool
│   └── external/       # external link cards
├── jobs/
│   └── auto-get-data/  # example job
├── connectors/
│   └── crudcrud/       # example connector (LLM-facing via MCP)
└── tags/
    └── defaults.go     # shared tag catalog

Skip auto-setup

Use --skip-setup if you want to run setup manually later:

wick init my-app --skip-setup
cd my-app && go mod tidy && go run . setup

4. Configure environment (optional)

Wick boots without any configuration — SQLite is used by default, no database setup needed.

To customize, copy the example file:

cp .env.example .env

All variables have working defaults. The only ones you may want to change before first boot:

Variable	Default	Notes
DATABASE_URL	(blank = SQLite)	Set to a Postgres URL to use PostgreSQL
APP_ADMIN_EMAILS	admin@example.com	Your email, gets admin on first login
APP_ADMIN_PASSWORD	(auto-generated)	Leave blank → 5-word passphrase saved to ~/.<app>/INITIAL_CREDENTIALS.txt; first login forces a password rotation

Everything else (app name, URL, SSO, OAuth) is editable from /admin/configs after the app starts.

5. Start dev server

cd my-app
wick dev

This generates templ, rebuilds CSS, and starts the server at http://localhost:9425.

6. Let Claude build your tools

Open the project in Claude Code. Every project includes AGENTS.md and Claude skills — Claude already knows the conventions.

Just tell Claude what you need:

add a tool called "base64" that encodes and decodes text

add a connector for the GitHub REST API with operations:
list_repos, get_repo, list_issues, create_issue (destructive)

See AI Quickstart for more sample prompts.

Wire up an LLM client

After your first boot, generate a Personal Access Token at /profile/tokens and paste it into Claude Desktop / Cursor / VSCode using the snippets at /profile/mcp. Your connectors are immediately callable from the LLM. See MCP for LLMs.

Common commands

The ones you'll reach for day-to-day:

Command	What it does
wick dev	Generate templ + CSS, start server at http://localhost:9425
wick server	Start HTTP server only (go run . server) — no asset generation
wick worker	Start background job worker (go run . worker)
wick build	Compile binary with version metadata baked in via ldflags
wick test	Run go test ./... with coverage
wick skill sync	Refresh bundled AI skills after upgrading wick

Full list — built-in CLI commands (init, run, server, worker, skill, version) and task shortcuts from wick.yml (dev, setup, build, test, tidy, generate) — see the CLI reference.