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    Getting started

    This guide helps you route your coding agent through condense with the dense CLI. When you finish, your agent runs through condense and your existing Claude auth keeps working.

    Agent prompt

    Help me set up condense on this machine. condense manages my coding agent's context and lowers my AI bill. dense is its CLI. Install dense with the command for my system. macOS or Linux: curl -fsSL https://cli.condense.chat/unix | sh Windows PowerShell: irm https://cli.condense.chat/nt | iex It installs dense, then signs in. A browser tab opens on a condense approval page, and I press Approve there. The command keeps waiting until I do, for up to 10 minutes, so run it with a long timeout or in the background and keep reading its output. Do not stop it early. Show me the sign-in code it prints so I can check it matches the approval page. If no tab opens, show me the link it prints so I can open it myself. Without a terminal, setup takes its defaults: it adds dense to my PATH and routes every coding tool it finds through condense. If that happens, tell me which tools it changed and that dense unpersist <tool> undoes it. When it finishes, run dense status, using the full path from the installer output if dense is not on PATH yet. token: present means I am signed in. If the code expired, run dense setup to get a new one and repeat these steps. If dense was already installed and token is missing, run dense login instead. Then check which of Claude Code (claude), Codex (codex) and OpenCode (opencode) are installed, ask which one I want to use, and show me the command to start it: dense claude, dense codex or dense opencode. Do not change this project's code or my provider credentials.

    Prerequisites

    • A coding agent you already use: Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode. dense routes the agents you have and doesn't bundle them.
    • macOS or Linux (x86_64 or aarch64), or Windows. Other platforms build from source.

    Set up dense

    Install the CLI once. The same login then backs every agent.

    1. Install dense

      Run the installer for your platform:

      bashcurl -fsSL https://cli.condense.chat/unix | sh

      The installer puts the dense binary on your PATH and hands off to dense setup, which logs you in.

    2. Check your login

      Setup logs you in during the install. To log in again later, run:

      bashdense login

      This opens login.condense.chat with a one-time code, so you don't copy or paste a key.

    3. Verify the install

      Check that the install is wired correctly:

      bashdense doctor

    4. Run your agent

      For Claude Code, run it through dense:

      bashdense claude

      Codex and OpenCode use a one-time config instead. See Connect your coding agent.

    Keep typing claude

    Setup offers to route the bare claude command through dense. To turn this on later, run:

    bashdense persist

    The real binary is never moved or modified. To remove the shim, run dense unpersist.

    Call condense from your own app

    To route your own app instead of a coding agent, point your SDK at a condense provider route. Follow the Quickstart.

    Note: API access is enabled for organization accounts after a call with our team.

    Next steps