Setup

Install Boot, create a workspace definition, then prepare and inspect the project for local work, coding agents, CI, or review.

1. Install

One line downloads the binary for your platform. Boot supports macOS, Linux, and Windows, and requires Git.

curl -fsSL https://useboot.co/install.sh | bash

2. Create a workspace

Place related repositories below one workspace root, then run boot init.

cd ~/code
boot init

1. Repositories - finds git repositories and records their portable paths

2. Requirements - detects package-manager and Node requirements declared by package.json

3. Commands - finds setup, development, and test scripts

4. Environment and services - records names from environment examples and services backed by Compose images

Boot writes boot.yaml and .bootignore. Review the generated file, add roles, constraints, or narrower profiles, then commit it with your code.

3. Preview and prepare the workspace

Preview the plan first, then let Boot prepare the repositories selected by the profile and check its requirements.

# see what will change
boot up . --profile agent --dry-run

# prepare the selected workspace
boot up . --profile agent

# run declared setup commands only when you intend to
boot up . --profile agent --run-setup

1. Selects a profile - prepares only the repositories and requirements needed for local work, an agent, CI, or review

2. Prepares repositories - clones or checks the repositories selected by that profile

3. Checks requirements - reports missing tools, services, and environment variables without installing tools or starting services

4. Returns a clear result - exits nonzero if selected repositories or declared requirements remain unresolved

4. Inspect the active workspace

Inspect the resolved profile and current state before a person, agent, or automation starts work.

boot inspect
boot inspect --json

The JSON output is stable, uncolored, and includes paths, roles, commands, requirements, constraints, and blockers. It never includes secret values.

5. Share across machines (optional)

For a private multi-repository workspace, link a private git repo as the workspace map and publish the reviewed definition.

# publish from the current machine
boot link [email protected]:me/code-map.git ~/code
boot save ~/code

# prepare it on another machine
boot link [email protected]:me/code-map.git ~/code
boot up ~/code --profile local

The map can contain shared Boot metadata and encrypted environment data. Keep it private and control who can access it.

Key concepts

workspace

Workspace

The complete development context for a project: repositories, commands, requirements, constraints, and profiles.

boot.yaml

Workspace definition

The portable, reviewable file that describes the workspace. Commit it with your code.

profile

Profile

A named selection of repositories, commands, tools, services, and environment requirements for one type of work.

map

Workspace map

An optional way to share Boot metadata and encrypted environment data across machines. It is not the workspace definition itself.