Install tome (for agents)

This page is for a coding agent that has been asked to install tome. Do the steps in order, and check each one before moving on. If a check fails, stop and tell the user what failed and what you saw.

The plain-text version of this page is at https://banyango.github.io/tome/md/agents/install.md.

1. Check whether tome is already installed

tome --version

If this prints a version, tome is installed. Skip to step 4, unless the user asked for an upgrade.

2. Check the platform

uname -sm

tome supports macOS (Darwin) and Linux, on arm64/aarch64 or x86_64. On anything else, stop and tell the user. Building from source is their call; see Install.

3. Run the installer

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/banyango/tome/main/install.sh | sh

It needs no sudo. It downloads the latest release, checks its SHA-256 checksum and puts tome in ~/.local/bin. If the checksum doesn’t match, it installs nothing and exits with an error. Report that to the user; don’t retry around it.

Only if the user asks for them:

TOME_VERSION=v0.1.0: a specific release instead of the latest.
TOME_INSTALL_DIR=<dir>: another directory instead of ~/.local/bin.

Set them on sh, not curl:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/banyango/tome/main/install.sh | TOME_VERSION=v0.1.0 sh

4. Check it’s on the PATH

command -v tome && tome --version

If command -v prints nothing, the install directory isn’t on PATH. The installer printed the line to add. Tell the user; don’t edit their shell profile unless they ask. To finish this session, call the binary by its full path, ~/.local/bin/tome.

5. Check the prerequisites

command -v tmux || echo "no tmux"
command -v claude || echo "no claude"
command -v git || echo "no git"

tome needs a terminal multiplexer: tmux, cmux or herdr. If the user works in cmux or herdr, tmux is optional. Ask if you can’t tell.
The default agent harness is Claude Code (claude). Other agents can be configured; see Sessions and backends.
git is needed for workflows that give workers their own worktrees.

Tell the user what’s missing. Installing tmux or an agent CLI changes their system, so ask first.

6. Start the daemon

tome daemon start
tome daemon status

status exits with code 3 if the daemon isn’t running. If the user runs cmux, the daemon has to be started from a terminal inside cmux, or sessions won’t open there.

To have it start at login, tome daemon install registers a launchd (macOS) or systemd --user (Linux) service. Only do that if the user asks.

7. Install the tome plugin

The tome plugin teaches agents to write, run and debug tome workflows. If you’re Claude Code, install it for every project:

claude plugin marketplace add banyango/tome
claude plugin install tome@tome

If the user asked for it in this project only, add --scope project to both commands. That writes .claude/settings.json; tell the user to commit it.

Check it:

claude plugin details tome

The output lists Skills (1) tome. The plugin loads in the next session, or after the user runs /reload-plugins.

If you aren’t Claude Code but you read Agent Skills, download the skill into your own skills directory instead:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/banyango/tome/main/plugin/skills/tome/SKILL.md \
  -o <skills-dir>/tome/SKILL.md

If you don’t read skills, skip this step and say so in your report.

8. Report back

Tell the user:

the version from tome --version, and where the binary is,
anything missing from step 5,
whether the daemon is running,
whether the plugin (or skill) was installed, and that it loads in a new session.

Next, they can follow the Quickstart.

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