Quickstart

Get Otto running on your machine in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose (v2+)
• An LLM API key from one of:
  • Google Gemini (recommended)
  • OpenAI
  • Ollama (free, runs locally)

Install and Start

Run the installer to download everything you need:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agent-otto/otto/main/install.sh | bash
cd otto
otto start

The first time you run otto start, it launches an interactive setup wizard that walks you through choosing an LLM provider and entering your API key. It also offers optional setup for web search (Tavily), Slack, email, and other integrations -- press Enter to skip anything you don't need yet.

Once startup completes, open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Prefer to clone the full repo? If you want to browse the source or contribute, you can clone instead:

git clone https://github.com/agent-otto/otto.git
cd otto
./otto start

Your First Task

1. The onboarding screen will prompt you to create your user profile. Enter your name and role.
2. In the main text area, type a task. Start with something simple:

Research the top 3 project management tools for small teams
and summarize their pricing.

3. Press Send. Otto will move the task to "running" and begin working.
4. Watch the task log to see each step Otto takes. When it finishes, the result appears in the task detail view.

You can submit new tasks while others are running. Otto processes up to 4 tasks concurrently.

Development Mode

If you want to modify Otto's code, use development mode instead. This requires Node.js 18+ on your host machine.

./otto dev

Development mode runs the backend in Docker with hot reload (code changes restart the server automatically) and the Next.js frontend natively on your machine for fast iteration. Redis is also exposed on port 6379 for debugging.

Stopping Otto

./otto stop

Common Commands

What's Next

• Configuration -- Set up LLM providers, Slack, email, and other integrations
• Production Deployment -- Production deployment and hardening
• Skills Guide -- Teach Otto new capabilities with custom skills
• Architecture -- Understand how the system fits together