Install / First steps

First steps

This page covers the first ten minutes after you have a Hydrate binary on your machine and (for paid tiers) a licence key in hand. If you don't yet, start with the tier that fits you, then come back here for the post-install builder.

1. Pick your tier and install

Each tier page covers the binary download, platform-specific setup steps, and (for paid tiers) how to get a licence key. Pick one, finish it, then return here.

Free — macOS and Linux, Homebrew or curl. No key required. Five minutes from brew install hydrate to a working local store.
Pro — upgrade from Free for Hydration Packs and the Opus / Sonnet handoff workflow. Activate with hydrate license activate <key> after buying.
Team — share project canon across teammates via a git remote. Manager bootstraps the canon repo; teammates clone it. Per-seat licence keys.
Enterprise — join an organisation-hosted Hydrate server. Offline-safe, shared canon, automatic sync. Your admin gives you the join URL and a per-user key.

2. Post-install builder

With the binary installed and (if applicable) a key activated, the five things below are what most people do next. Fill in the fields, copy the generated script, and run it in a terminal on the machine where Hydrate is installed. The page never runs anything; every line is yours to review and edit.

Want semantic recall and paraphrase-aware retrieval to work? Run hydrate setup-embedder on Free / Pro (~115 MB, one command), or point at your LAN embedder endpoint on Enterprise. Hydrate falls back to lexical retrieval without it.

Anything you leave blank is skipped. The minimum useful run is "project slug + repo directory"; that gives you a Hydrate project with starter canon imported from your existing CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md.

License

If you have a licence key, activate it now. Otherwise skip; Free tier works everywhere.

License keyleave empty to stay on the Free tier

Also log in (store API key)opens an interactive browser-based flow via hydrate login

Project

Tell Hydrate about the repo you'll be working in.

Project slugkebab-case · the name Hydrate uses to scope facts and canon

Repository directoryabsolute path, or leave empty for current dir

Run hydrate setupLLM-drafts a seed script (canon entries + backfilled sessions). Recommended.

Also dehydrate prose docsshrinks CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md to summaries (kept as .pre-hydrate.bak)

Import previous data (optional)

Coming from another machine or a teammate? Drop in a .hpack file path to seed your local store before anything else runs.

Hydration pack pathleave empty to skip · hydrate pack create emits these

Queue pack content for next sessionsurfaces it as briefing in Claude Code on your next launch

Git for team sync (optional)

Sharing canon with teammates? Bootstrap a git repo for the project's canon, push it once, and your team can pull on their machines.

Remote URLleave empty to skip · suggested name: hydrate-canon-<project>

Local repo directorywhere the canon git working copy will live

Verify

Run the 16-point health check at the end. Catches missing hooks, an unreachable daemon, licence issues; anything that would cause a silent fail.

Append hydrate doctor at the end

What the script does

Sanity: verifies hydrate is on PATH; aborts loudly if not.
License: activates with your key (if set), then optionally logs in to store your API key.
Pack import: if you set a pack path, imports it before anything else so your project starts with that knowledge.
Project init: creates the project from the supplied directory, optionally running --dehydrate to shrink docs.
Team git: if you set a remote, bootstraps the canon repo, makes the first commit, pushes, and registers the path with Hydrate.
Doctor: the 16-check health pass at the end. Anything red here is something to fix before moving on.