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Quick install

From inside the repo you want Kairos to work on:
The first run walks you through four steps automatically: login, project setup, memory initialization, and daemon start.
Kairos works at the workspace level. Each repo gets its own .backant.toml policy file and its own daemon. Memory itself lives at the user level (under ~/.claude/kairos/) and is shared across all workspaces.

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Requirements

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The first-run wizard

npx backant-kairos runs these steps in order. Each step is also runnable individually as a subcommand.
1

Login

Opens a browser auth flow against backant.io to issue credentials. Credentials persist across reboots under ~/.claude/kairos/. On a headless machine, backant login --device prints a code to enter from any browser.
2

Project setup

Scans the workspace, detects language/framework/CI conventions, and generates .backant.toml (the per-project policy file). Also installs recommended skills and plugins, and adds .backant.toml to CODEOWNERS so policy changes route to you.
Idempotent — existing .backant.toml is preserved.
3

Memory init

One-time installation of the local embedding stack. Pulls the Docker image plus a Qwen3-Embedding model sized to your hardware, and writes ~/.claude/kairos/config.json.
Takes 3–5 minutes depending on the tier and your network. See the memory page for tier sizing.
4

Start Kairos

Attaches Kairos to the current workspace and begins working.

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Subsequent installs

Once the wizard has run once per workspace, you only need backant start to resume. Running backant alone detects whether to resume or run setup.

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Or let your agent install it

If you already work with Claude Code, Codex, pi, or Hermes, install the Kairos skill once and tell your agent “Set up Kairos for this repo”. It runs every step above, relays the login code to you, and then interviews you about what Kairos may do. See Let your agent run Kairos.

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Re-running setup

If you change .backant.toml, add a new repo, or want to refresh installed skills:
Existing config is preserved; new conventions are merged where safe.

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Switching embedding models

After the initial install, you can re-run memory init to pick a different Qwen3 tier. If you do, run memory reindex afterwards to re-embed everything against the new model — otherwise recall will produce dimension mismatches.

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Uninstall

To stop the daemon and remove all Kairos state from your machine:
The npm package itself can be removed with npm uninstall -g backant-kairos if installed globally, or just deleted if you used npx.