pnpm run setup generates your secrets, starts the database and app in Docker, and runs migrations — the only thing you provide is an Anthropic API key. Once it’s running, you finish configuration inside the app and add optional capabilities (email, search, Signal) whenever you need them.
Prerequisites
Before you start, install the following:- Node.js 24 or later — verify with
node --version - Docker and Docker Compose — Postgres and the app both run in Docker; install Docker Desktop or the standalone CLI
- pnpm — install with
npm install -g pnpm
Setup also uses
openssl to generate secrets. It ships by default on macOS and most Linux distributions, so you likely already have it.Quick start
Run setup
- Checks that Docker, Node, and pnpm are available
- Generates the database password and the vault master key (
SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY) and writes them to.env - Prompts you for an Anthropic API key — get one at console.anthropic.com
- Starts Postgres, waits for it to be healthy, and runs database migrations
- Seeds the encrypted vault with the generated API token, the login secret, and your Anthropic key (these are never written to
.env) - Starts the full Curia stack in Docker
.env.Save your bootstrap secret
When setup finishes, it prints a summary box with your login URL and a bootstrap secret:Save the bootstrap secret to a password manager now. You’ll use it to log in, and it won’t be shown again.
Log in and finish in the app
Open http://localhost:3000 and enter your bootstrap secret to create your account.Once you’re in, the setup wizard at
/setup runs automatically. It’s a short five-step form: your name (the CEO Curia works for), the assistant’s identity, baseline tone, decision-making posture, and a review screen. Submitting the last step writes everything through, restarts external channels if needed, and drops you directly into the chat view at /chat.At /chat, Curia greets you, asks what takes up most of your time, and walks through working hours and a recommended debrief cadence — this is the setup-wizard specialist agent running its first-conversation flow. Reply to it the same way you’d talk to any other agent; the preferences it captures get appended to the same office identity the form wizard wrote. The whole personalization step takes a few minutes and makes every subsequent interaction noticeably more useful.Checkpoint: Curia is running on Anthropic and Postgres. Agents are live, the web app is working, and the assistant knows enough about you to be useful. Add email, semantic search, or Signal below whenever you need them.
Running setup again
Running setup again
If
.env already exists, pnpm run setup won’t overwrite it. Instead it offers a short menu:- Start the stack — bring the containers back up (
docker compose up -d) - Resume setup — re-run database migrations and startup against your existing
.env, useful if a previous run didn’t finish - Full reset — regenerate all secrets. This invalidates active sessions and requires typing
yesto confirm
Full setup
The quick start gives you a running instance on Anthropic and Postgres. The capabilities below are optional and independent — add them in any order, only when you need them. Each one follows the same pattern: seed the relevant credential into the encrypted vault, then recreate the Curia container to pick up the change. To seed a secret, set it transiently on the command line and run the seed script — the value is read from the environment, encrypted, and stored:Email (Nylas)
Curia uses Nylas as its email layer — a unified API that handles IMAP and SMTP complexity and provides a consistent interface across Gmail, Outlook, and other providers.Create a Nylas account
Sign up at app.nylas.com. The free tier is sufficient for development.
Create an application
In the Nylas dashboard, create a new application and choose Email as the product. Once created, copy your API key — this is your
NYLAS_API_KEY.Connect an email account
In your application, go to Grants and add a new grant. This connects an email account (Gmail, Outlook, and others) to your Nylas application via OAuth. Use the address you want Curia to read and send from.After completing the OAuth flow, copy the Grant ID that appears in your dashboard — this is your
NYLAS_GRANT_ID.Seed the Nylas credentials into the vault
Seed all three values at once. All three must be present for the email channel to activate:They are stored under the vault keys
nylas_api_key, nylas_grant_id, and nylas_self_email. nylas_self_email is the address Curia reads and sends from — it filters self-sent messages and signs outbound emails.Semantic search and entity memory (OpenAI)
OpenAI’stext-embedding-3-small model powers entity memory and semantic search in the knowledge graph. Without it, knowledge graph lookups are exact-match only.
Get an API key from platform.openai.com and seed it into the vault (stored as openai_api_key):
Web research (Tavily)
Tavily powers theweb-search skill, which lets agents research topics and look up current information during tasks.
Get a Tavily API key
Sign up at tavily.com and copy your API key from the dashboard.
Enable the web-search skill
web-search declares tavily_api_key in its install.requires_secrets, so it stays disabled until the key is in the vault. Once seeded, enable the skill from the Settings registry in the console, then recreate the container:Signal messaging
Signal messaging runs via signal-cli. Docker Compose manages the socket path automatically — the only thing you need to provide is your phone number.Bootstrap signal-cli
Signal requires registering a phone number with signal-cli and seeding the
signal-data Docker volume with the resulting credentials. Refer to your deployment documentation for the bootstrap procedure.Seed your phone number into the vault
Seed your E.164-formatted phone number — the number you registered via It is stored under the vault key
signal-cli register and signal-cli verify:signal_phone_number. Do not set SIGNAL_SOCKET_PATH — the deployment layer manages this automatically.Troubleshooting
Setup says my .env already exists
Setup says my .env already exists
This is expected on a second run.
pnpm run setup never overwrites an existing .env — instead it offers a menu to start the stack, resume setup, or do a full reset. Full reset is the only option that regenerates secrets, and it asks for confirmation first.Postgres connection refused
Postgres connection refused
Confirm the container is running:The database password is generated during
pnpm run setup and shared with the container automatically through .env, so the credentials match by default. If you’ve edited .env by hand, make sure DATABASE_URL is still consistent with DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD.Email channel not activating
Email channel not activating
All three Nylas secrets must be in the vault:
nylas_api_key, nylas_grant_id, and nylas_self_email. If any is missing, the channel disables itself at startup. Confirm what is seeded with pnpm run seed-vault (it verifies and lists keys), then check the startup logs for a “email channel disabled” or “email adapter disabled” message.Remember to recreate the container after seeding: docker compose up -d --force-recreate curia.macOS: HTTPS requests fail with 'unable to get local issuer certificate'
macOS: HTTPS requests fail with 'unable to get local issuer certificate'
Node installed via nvm or fnm bundles its own CA store and doesn’t trust macOS system certificates. Export your system certs and point Node at them:Then uncomment this line in
.env and recreate the container:Next steps
Configure your instance
Set up multiple email accounts, tune the autonomy engine, and customize security rules.
Core concepts
Understand how agents, skills, memory, and channels fit together.