Quickstart

Install Agent AFK, set your API key, and run your first command in under two minutes.

Prerequisites

npm install -g agent-afk

Confirm the binary is on your PATH:

afk --version

The simplest path is an environment variable:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

Add that line to your shell profile (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, etc.) to make it permanent.

Alternatively, write it to Agent AFK's env config file so it's scoped to afk only:

echo "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-..." >> ~/.afk/config/afk.env

Or keep the key out of your shell history with a masked prompt:

afk config env set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY   # prompts without echoing the value

Or use the OAuth flow (no API key required — authenticates via console.anthropic.com):

afk login

Verify the installation and provider connectivity:

afk chat "hello"
afk doctor       # environment self-check: Node version, API key, paths, config

afk doctor will flag any missing keys, path problems, or provider connectivity issues.

For a one-shot question:

afk chat "summarise the last 10 git commits in this repo"

For an interactive REPL with full tool access (bash, file ops, web fetch, subagents):

afk i

Inside the REPL, type a message and press Enter. Use /help to list slash commands.

afk i is an alias for afk interactive. The REPL is the default command — running afk with no subcommand also starts the REPL.

The default model is sonnet. Override per-command:

afk chat "explain this stack trace" --model opus
afk i --model haiku

Alias	Description
`fable`	Most capable — hardest reasoning, 1M context
`opus`	Complex reasoning, multi-step planning
`sonnet`	Balanced speed and capability (default)
`haiku`	Fast and cheap, good for simple tasks