Quickstart

Before you start

Want a look around first? On the homepage, use the switcher above the live product preview to explore Sessions, Fleet, and Review, or choose Watch the demo for a short walkthrough. Then choose Start free trial to connect your first machine.

Pick the machine you want to connect first. It should be the one with your code on it: your work laptop, your desktop, or the box you normally SSH into. Termdeck runs the agent where the repository already is, so nothing has to be cloned or synced anywhere.

On that machine you need Node.js 18 or newer. Check it with node --version. If the command is not found, install Node first and come back.

The five steps

1. Create an account

   Choose Start free trial on the homepage, or go directly to termdeck.io/signup. Sign up with GitHub, or with an email and a password of at least 10 characters; the form counts down to the minimum as you type, names any problem under the field it belongs to, offers a fix for a mistyped address such as gmial.com, and warns when Caps Lock is on. Use an address you keep: throwaway inboxes from temporary mail services are refused. If a log in or sign up is paused after too many tries, the button counts down to when you can try again; on sign up, Continue with GitHub still works meanwhile. If GitHub sign-in does not finish, you land back on the login page with what happened and what to try. After you sign up, a five-step tour shows what Termdeck does: engines, machines, chats, approvals and reviewing changes. Use Next and Back or the arrow keys, or choose Skip tour; it shows once per account, so logging in on another device does not replay it. Then Termdeck shows Start your 14-day free trial: pick Starter or Pro and enter a card at checkout. The card is not charged until day 15, and if you cancel before then from Settings, then Account, you are never charged. If you picked a plan in the pricing section, it is already selected. When checkout finishes, Termdeck sets up the trial and opens Connect a machine on its own, which is step 2. You need a plan before you can connect a machine.

   To explore first, choose Watch the demo on the homepage for a 56 second film of the same day with and without Termdeck, then an illustrated run from prompt to approval. The film plays only when you press play. With reduced motion enabled on your device, the animated code background stays still and the illustrated run shows a completed run. The pricing section compares Starter and Pro before you sign up.

   We send a confirmation link to the address you used. Open it when you can: it is what password resets rely on. Opening the link confirms the address but does not sign you in, so on a browser where you are not signed in, log in afterward. The link works for 7 days; opening an older one sends a fresh link to the same inbox. Nothing arrived? See Signing up in Troubleshooting. With a card on your plan you can connect a machine before confirming; an account on a redeemed code has to confirm first. Typed the address wrong? Open Settings, then Account and choose Change address, or use Change address in the confirmation window itself. You can change it while it is unconfirmed; once it is confirmed it is fixed, so email us if you need it moved after that.

2. Add a machine

   Right after checkout, the Connect a machine window opens by itself with a name filled in from the computer you are on, such as my-mac; keep it or type your own. Later, use Connect on the dashboard, or Settings, then Machines and accounts, then Add machine. Give it a short name using lowercase letters, digits, and dashes, up to 32 characters. The name appears in the sidebar and in every URL that addresses that machine, so laptop or build-vm reads better than machine-1.

   The wizard shows a one time token that starts with agt_, and the exact install command with that token already in it. Copy the command rather than retyping it.

   The token is shown once. If you lose it, do not create a second machine: open the machine card and choose Regenerate token, which reissues it and takes you straight back to this step.

3. Run the install command on that machine

   Paste it into a terminal on the machine you are connecting. It downloads a small Node program, installs two dependencies, saves your token, and registers a background service so the machine stays connected across reboots.

   That last part depends on what the machine has. systemd on Linux and launchd on macOS both bring the agent back after a restart, and Windows registers a logon task. A box with none of them falls back to cron, or to nothing at all, and the installer says which one it used. If it warns that the agent will not come back after a restart, believe it: the machine card repeats the warning as a stops at restart badge, so you can check later without scrolling back through a terminal.

   macOS and Linux Windows
   Terminal

   curl -fsSL https://termdeck.io/install.sh | TERMDECK_AGENT_TOKEN=agt_your_token sh

   The installer offers to print the whole agent source before it runs anything. Answering y shows every file it is about to install, then asks again before continuing.

   The wizard in your browser notices the connection within a few seconds and moves itself to the next step. You do not have to refresh.

4. Install and sign in to a coding CLI

   The agent is a relay. It does not bring a coding agent with it, so the machine needs at least one of the three engines installed and signed in. Once the machine connects, the wizard's last step lists Claude Code, Codex and Grok as that machine reports them. You only need one; Claude Code is listed first.

   • Not installed shows the exact install command with a Copy button. Run it in a terminal on that machine. The row checks again every few seconds and moves on by itself once the CLI is installed, or choose Recheck.
   • Sign in needed shows Sign in, which opens the same sign-in window as the machine card. The login is saved on the machine, not by Termdeck.
   • Ready gets a green check, and the wizard offers Start your first chat.

   You can also do it all from a terminal on the machine:

   On the machine

   # Claude Code
   npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
   claude
   
   # OpenAI Codex
   npm install -g @openai/codex
   codex login
   
   # xAI Grok
   npm install -g @vibe-kit/grok-cli
   grok login

   Each login opens a browser page and stores its credentials in that CLI's own config directory. Termdeck reads that state, it never asks for or stores your provider password. Full detail per engine is in Install a coding CLI.

5. Start a chat

   Choose Start your first chat in the wizard, or New chat in the dashboard. The wizard's button opens the new chat page with the machine you just connected already picked. Pick the folder your project lives in, check the engine, and send a prompt. The transcript streams as the agent works, and any tool call that needs your approval appears as a card with Allow and Deny on it.

   Try something small first, for example list the files in this repository and tell me what it does. That exercises the whole path without changing anything.

Check it worked

Three things should be true now.

• The machine card in Settings, then Machines and accounts shows a green dot and an agent version.
• The engine you installed shows as signed in on that card.
• Your prompt produced a reply, and the sidebar lists the chat under its project folder.

If any of those is not true, open the machine card and choose Run checks. It reports what it found, what it could not read, and the exact command that fixes each problem. Troubleshooting covers the same ground with more context.

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