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First Steps

Configure Byte and run your first session.

Prerequisites

Before running Byte:

  • Git repository - Byte operates inside a git repository
  • Good terminal - A modern terminal emulator with proper rendering support (like Kitty, Foot, WezTerm, or Alacritty)
  • API key - One of these environment variables must be set:
  • ANTHROPIC_API_KEY for Claude models
  • GEMINI_API_KEY for Google Gemini
  • OPENAI_API_KEY for OpenAI models

Configuration

Set Your API Key

Export the environment variable for your chosen provider:

$ export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-key-here

Or create a .env file in your project root:

$ echo "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-key-here" > .env

Byte runs from within a git repository:

$ cd /path/to/your/project
$ git init  # If not already a git repo

Running Byte

Launch Byte from your project directory:

$ byte

On first run, Byte's FirstBootService will guide you through initial setup:

  1. Choose LLM Provider - Select your preferred AI provider (Anthropic, Gemini, or OpenAI)
  2. Configure Web Commands - Automatically detects Chrome/Chromium for web scraping
  3. Enable File Watching - Optionally enable automatic detection of AI comment markers
  4. Setup .gitignore - Adds .byte/cache and .byte/session_context patterns

The service creates:

  • .byte/ directory in your project root
  • config.yaml with your selected configuration
  • conventions/ directory for project-specific coding standards
  • context/ directory for session context
  • cache/ directory for temporary files

The .byte Directory

Byte creates a .byte/ directory containing:

  • config.yaml - Configuration settings for model selection, tool availability, and behavior (see Settings Reference)
  • cache/ - Temporary data and performance optimizations
  • conventions/ - Project-specific style guides and coding standards that are automatically included in the AI's context

See the Conventions guide to learn how to define project-specific coding standards that Byte automatically includes in the AI's context.

Basic Usage

Adding Files to Context

The AI needs to know about files before suggesting changes:

/add src/main.py

Adding a file to context

Making Changes

Ask Byte to modify code:

> Refactor the main function to use dependency injection

Review the proposed changes, then approve or reject them.

Learn how to work with files in the AI's context - see File Context for details on adding, viewing, and removing files.