Quickstart

Choose the desktop app, CLI, or web app to get started. The desktop app and CLI can use your existing API keys and coding plans, while the web app runs agents in a cloud sandbox with no local setup.

Setup

Desktop App

1. Download and install the Letta app

   Download for macOS

   Available for MacOS, Windows and Linux

2. Open the Letta app

   Launch the app and select “Skip login”.

   Click “Connect model providers” in the bottom-left menu to add external API keys and coding plans.

3. Select your agent and conversation

   Brand-new accounts start in Tutor, an onboarding agent. You can also create or switch agents later. To start chatting with an agent, enter the main chat, or create a new conversation.

CLI

1. Install the Letta CLI

   Run the following command to install the Letta CLI via your terminal (requires Node.js version 22.19+):

   npm install -g @letta-ai/letta-code

   To launch the Letta CLI, run:

   letta

   If you’re running the Letta CLI interactively for the first time, a Tutor agent will be auto-created for you.

2. Connect to LLM providers

   Use /connect to connect external API keys, coding plans, and local inference servers.

3. Navigate to your project

   cd your-project
   letta

4. Send your first message

   You’re ready to chat! Try asking your agent to explore your codebase or run /init to bootstrap its memory.

   Use /new to start a new conversation (or letta --new), /resume to swap conversations, /agent to swap agents, and /model to swap models. View the CLI reference to see the full list of CLI commands.

5. Optional: sign in with Letta

   Run /login to back up your agents to the cloud and make them available from any device, including chat.letta.com. If you continue without an account, your agents are stored only on local disk and may require manual backups.

Web App

1. Open the Letta web app and sign in

   Visit chat.letta.com from your browser or phone and sign in with your Letta account. If you don’t have one, you’ll be prompted to create a free account.

2. Select your agent and conversation

   Brand-new accounts start in Tutor, an onboarding agent. You can also create or switch agents and conversations from the sidebar.

3. Choose where your agent runs

   The web app uses a managed cloud sandbox by default, so you can start without configuring a computer. To give your agent access to files and tools on your laptop, workstation, or cloud VM, connect your own machine and select it from the environment picker.

4. Send your first message

   You’re ready to chat! Try asking your agent to research a topic, create a file, or run /init to bootstrap its memory.

First steps

Try one of the following prompts to get a feel for your agent’s capabilities:

> /init

> What do you know about me so far?

> Create a user profile on my by looking at my downloads folder

> What active projects am I working on? Which one do you think you could help with?

> Re-tool your memory to be just like the AI from the movie Her, operate as my AI OS companion

Customizing your agent

Once you have an agent, start customizing its behavior and capabilities.

Mods

The Letta agent harness is intentionally minimal so you can add your preferred set of features through Mods.

Mods are trusted code that let an agent modify the runtime it executes in — adding tools, commands, and UI, or changing how context is fed into the model. Browse the Mods catalog to see what’s available. A few recommended mods to start with:

letta install npm:@letta-ai/image-understanding   # vision for text-only models
letta install npm:@letta-ai/memfs-search          # semantic search over agent memory
letta install npm:@letta-ai/plan-mode             # plan-before-execute workflow

Run /reload after installing to activate a mod.

You can also ask your agent to write custom mods for you - agents are aware of mods and how to create them out of the box.

Skills

Skills are reusable instructions your agent loads when relevant—API patterns, workflows, or specialized procedures. Letta implements the open Agent Skills standard, so you can install skills built for other agents, including Hermes (official/...) and OpenClaw (clawhub/...) skills:

letta install official/<skill-name>   # Hermes-style official skill
letta install clawhub:<slug>          # OpenClaw ClawHub skill

You can also just ask your agent to install a skill from a GitHub URL, or browse the Letta skills repo for ideas.

Learning

Your agent learns how to behave from you. Give it feedback in plain language (“be more concise”, “always run the tests before committing”) and it will update its memory to match. When it makes a mistake it should never repeat, use /remember to make the correction durable:

> /remember always use pnpm in this project, never npm

Your agent also has full access to all prior conversation data, which it can search via tools, skills, and subagents. If you’ve discussed something before, your agent can find it (e.g. “We definitely fixed a similar bug before, do you remember what the solution was?”).

Essential commands

You’ll likely want to use the following essential commands when using the Letta CLI:

Command	What it does	Example
letta	Start interactive mode	letta
letta -p "query"	Run a query in headless mode	letta -p "commit the changes and push"
shift-tab	Toggle permission modes	Press Shift+Tab
/init	Run deep memory initialization (or re-init)	> /init
/doctor	Audit and refine memory structure	> /doctor
/remember	Teach your agent something	> /remember always use pnpm
/memory	View and manage memory blocks	> /memory
/model	Switch the LLM model	> /model
/search	Search past messages	> /search auth bug
/clear	Clear context window (messages buffer)	> /clear
/new	Start a new conversation	> /new
/pin	Pin agent for easy access	> /pin
/agents	Swap between agents	> /agents
/feedback	Report issues or give feedback	> /feedback
!	Enter bash mode to run a bash command directly	! git status
exit or Ctrl+C	Exit Letta Code	> exit

Next steps

Read more about the agent’s memory, skills, and subagents, which are essential to getting the most out of your agent:

• Memory - Understand the hierarchical memory system
• Skills - Create reusable modules to extend your agent
• Subagents - Letta agents can spawn other (sub)agents
• Scheduling - Run one-time or recurring prompts while a remote environment is connected
• Headless mode - Run Letta Code non-interactively

Getting help

• Join our Discord: The best way to get help is to join our Discord server and chat with other community members and devs on the Letta team.
• Ask your agent: Your agent can browse the web, including these docs!