Core Quickstart

Turn your own machine into a Core and drive it from the same terminal. No Docker, no Panel, no pairing step. Linux (x64/arm64) or macOS on Apple silicon — on Windows, use Docker Compose or the Client CLI.

Install the Core bundle — this places it and stops, nothing runs yet:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/actana/control/main/install.sh | bash

Activate it, pinned to loopback so nothing on your LAN can reach it:

actana setup --public-host 127.0.0.1

Check it:

actana status

setup self-registers this Core with this machine's own actana, so there is no pairing step for this case. Confirm it is there and already selected:

actana core ls

Add a project — an absolute path to a repo on this machine:

actana project add myapp /path/to/your/repo

Start a session:

actana session start myapp "summarise this repo" --harness claude-code

Watch it:

actana session attach myapp

The Harness CLI itself (here claude) must be installed on this machine — actana setup offers each missing one, and actana harnesses install <id> adds one later. See Harnesses.

Where to next

• --public-host 127.0.0.1 puts loopback in the Core's certificate, so only this machine can ever pair to it. To reach this Core from a Panel or another machine, re-run actana setup --public-host with a routable address — details in Actana Setup.
• What every command above actually did: Install Core.
• Drive it from a browser instead: deploy a Panel (Panel Installation) and pair.