You’ll go from nothing to a running organization in about five minutes. The only prerequisite is a brain for your agents — this quick start uses the Claude Code binary, the simplest default.

1. Get a brain

An agent’s brain is a pluggable agent CLI, set per agent. The default is the Claude Code binary — the quickest way to start. Install it and log in once, or provide an API key:

# Option A — use the claude CLI's own login (run it once, interactively)
claude

# Option B — provide a key the binary can use
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

If the claude binary isn’t on your PATH, point Quorum at it with --claude-bin <path> or the CLAUDE_BIN environment variable. Quorum checks at boot that the binary is runnable and logged in, so a missing login fails with a clear message instead of a stalled first cycle.

Prefer a different brain — Codex, a local model via Ollama or LM Studio (free), Antigravity, a lightweight llm text brain, or one of several other agent CLIs? Any agent can run on its own. See The brain; the rest of this quick start assumes Claude.

Agents execute real, unrestricted shell commands on your machine, headlessly — a running turn has no per-command approval, and each agent’s working directory is a convention, not a container. Capabilities and budgets are the control surface; for hard isolation, run the org inside a VM or container. Use a model and budget you’re comfortable letting run unattended. See Permissions and Cost & budget.

2. Boot an org

The directory is the org, and its definition is a single QUORUM.md file inside it. In an empty directory, scaffold one and boot it:

npx @meffecta/quorum init    # writes a starter QUORUM.md — no tokens spent
npx @meffecta/quorum         # boots it

The starter org is a solo CEO with a budget who employs the rest of the team on demand. (quorum won’t start without a QUORUM.md — if you skip the init, it refuses and tells you to run it.)

On boot, quorum asks for the org’s mission at the terminal. Prefer to give it — and a spend cap — up front:

npx @meffecta/quorum --mission "Build and launch a tiny SaaS" --budget 20

A brand-new org must have a mission — from --mission, a --mission-file <file>, or a QUORUM.md’s ## Mission, in exactly one of those places (naming it twice is an error). Provide none and quorum prompts for one at the terminal; with no TTY it refuses to start rather than run idle. The starter file names the org with a random two-word name (say, “Velvet Harbor”) — rename it by editing the # heading in QUORUM.md.

Install it for keeps

npx fetches Quorum on demand — ideal for a first run. If you’ll boot orgs regularly, install it once so the quorum command is always on your PATH:

npm install -g @meffecta/quorum
quorum --mission "Build and launch a tiny SaaS" --budget 20

The rest of these docs use the bare quorum command; with a global install it just works, and it skips the per-run fetch npx does.

Requirements at a glance

The Claude Code CLI, or an ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
An empty directory. To scaffold into a non-empty one, pass --force.

The standalone binary bundles its own runtime, so it has no other dependencies.

3. Open the dashboard

🌐  Dashboard + chat: http://localhost:3000

Open it. The dashboard is where you both watch the org and talk to it. The terminal is output-only — it prints activity and takes no commands. Use --port to run on another port (handy when running several orgs at once).

4. Steer it

Everything you do to the org, you do from the dashboard:

Message the whole org — a directive that’s folded into the next cycle and becomes a goal.
Message a single agent — pick them from the dropdown; they reply in character.
Answer requests — when an agent needs something it can’t do itself (an account, a credential, a decision), it raises a request with yes / no / answer… buttons. Your answer is written straight into that agent’s memory.

5. Start bigger (optional)

Want more than a solo CEO on day one? Edit the scaffolded QUORUM.md — or write your own — before booting. It defines the whole team in one file: name, mission, agents, budget. Booting never calls the LLM to load the definition, so you can iterate on the file freely. The full format, with a copy-paste starting point, is in QUORUM.md.

Or have Claude draft one from a plain-words brief — one call, which you review before spending anything more:

quorum init --prompt "a newsletter studio: an editor leading a writer and a researcher"

init only scaffolds — it never starts the org, so you can edit the file first. To draft and boot in one command (no review pause), pass the same --prompt to quorum itself:

quorum --prompt "a newsletter studio: an editor leading a writer and a researcher"

Stopping and resuming

Ctrl-C stands the org down cleanly — it kills any in-flight agent work and closes the dashboard. Boot it again in the same directory and it resumes: the board, roster, memory, and spend are all persisted files, so a restart picks up where it left off. --mission only seeds a new org; on a restart it’s ignored (with a warning) because the org already has its goal board.