Install

After this page you can run carina doctor and start a session.

What you’ll get

• carina CLI on your PATH
• Ability to start the local daemon (carina daemon start or auto-start via carina)
• Optional workers and client surfaces (TUI is built into the CLI)

Prerequisites

• macOS 13+ or modern Linux (x86_64 / arm64)
• Network only if you install packages or call cloud models (the runtime itself is local-first)

Install

Prefer the shell installer for a full local toolchain.

curl -fsSL https://carina.nebutra.com/install.sh | sh

brew install Nebutra/tap/carina

Homebrew installs do not auto-update — run brew upgrade when you need a newer build, or use carina update when the install is owned by the standalone channel.

npm install -g @nebutra/carina

install-from-source.sh

git clone https://github.com/nebutra/carina.git
cd carina
make install

Source builds are for contributors; see docs/release.md for packaging truth.

Verify

1. Version

   carina version

2. Init config dir (optional)

   carina init

   Creates ~/.carina and prints a daemon hint.

3. Doctor

   carina doctor

   Checks daemon reachability, config paths, and common misconfigurations. Explicit repairs: carina doctor --fix --yes.

Daemon

The long-running process owns sessions, policy evaluation, and the audit store.

Command	Meaning
carina daemon start	Start the CLI-owned local daemon
carina daemon status	Status without auto-start
carina daemon stop	Stop only a daemon owned by this CLI
carina daemon logs	Recent logs
carina status	Health and counters

Interactive carina (TUI) auto-starts the daemon when needed. You can still start it explicitly before headless carina run.

Default socket: ~/.carina/daemon.sock (override with -socket).

Updates

carina update --check
carina update

carina update is daemon-free and follows installation ownership (Homebrew/npm/pnpm delegate to the package manager; standalone installs use the published archive + checksum). It does not stop a running task — restart the daemon after tasks finish.

If it fails

Symptom	What to try
command not found: carina	Open a new shell; confirm installer PATH hints
daemon unreachable	carina daemon start then carina doctor
Doctor reports tool gaps	Re-run installer / make install so Zig toolchain sits next to the binary
Stale build	carina update or package-manager upgrade

More: FAQ.

Source of truth

• Installer & packaging: docs/release.md
• Security posture after install: Policy
• Feature map: apps/docs/FEATURE_MAP.md

Next

→ Quickstart — first governed session on a real repo.