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Install Construct, do your first task, connect your editor. ~5 minutes.

2 min read·guides / start

By the end of this section you will have:

  1. Construct installed globally on your machine.
  2. A working project with .construct/ scaffolding, agent adapters synced to your editor, and the local services running.
  3. Dispatched your first task to the construct persona and watched it run end-to-end.

If anything goes wrong, jump to troubleshooting.

5 minInstallnpm or brewFirst taskconstruct initConnect editorClaude · OpenCode · Codex · CopilotWhat nextintake · concepts · cookbook

The four steps

#StepTime
1Install2 min
2Your first task3 min
3Connect your editor1 min
4What next

What you're installing

  • A CLI (construct) that bootstraps and operates the system locally.
  • A set of host adapters that get written into your editor's config: full agent adapters for Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex, and Copilot prompt profiles; MCP registrations for VS Code/Copilot and Cursor when those configs already exist.
  • An embedded LanceDB vector index for semantic retrieval. No database or Docker required. Trace capture writes local .construct/traces/*.jsonl by default; remote export is optional.

You install in solo mode by default — everything runs locally, the intake queue is the filesystem under .construct/intake/, and there's no Construct cloud account. Two other deployment modes (team and enterprise) promote the queue and memory to shared Postgres and route MCP through a broker — see deployment model.

Run construct sync to install or refresh the OpenCode front-door agent plus MCP wiring for the other supported editor surfaces. Use OpenCode as the primary conversational UI; keep the construct CLI for setup, status, intake, orchestration, and CI/headless contracts.

Platform support

PlatformInstallHooks
macOSHomebrew or npmFull
Linuxnpm (global or project)Full
Windowsnpm via WSLWSL required for hooks

On Linux: npm install -g @geraldmaron/construct works without Homebrew. Run construct init after install.

On Windows: install WSL2, then install Construct inside WSL using the Linux path. Native Windows hook execution is not supported; hooks use bash-style path expansion.