Quick Start

This guide gets you from zero to your first MeowKit-managed task in 5 minutes.

Step 1: Install MeowKit

npx mewkit init

The CLI walks you through a short set of prompts, and every one after the toolkit picker is skippable. See Installation for the full list and the flags that skip them. Takes ~30 seconds.

After scaffolding completes, run setup and verify:

npx mewkit setup
npx mewkit doctor

Step 2: Create your first task

npx mewkit task new --type feature "Add user authentication with JWT"

This writes a task file to tasks/active/ from the feature template. Open it and fill in the acceptance criteria; they are what the plan and the review are both measured against, so vague criteria produce a vague plan.

Step 3: Start a Claude Code session

Open your terminal in the project directory and start Claude Code:

claude

Claude automatically reads CLAUDE.md and loads MeowKit's agents, skills, and rules.

Step 4: Run your first command

Plan the task you just created:

/mk:plan add user authentication with JWT

MeowKit will:

1. Route to the planner agent
2. Challenge your premises (do you really need JWT?)
3. Create a structured plan at tasks/plans/YYMMDD-auth/plan.md
4. Ask for your approval (Gate 1)

Step 5: See the full pipeline

Once you approve the plan, try the full cook pipeline:

/mk:cook

This runs the complete workflow. Each phase activates the appropriate agent, and you will meet both hard gates along the way. See Workflow Phases for what each one does.

Step 6: Explore more commands

What happened behind the scenes

When you ran /mk:plan, MeowKit:

1. Phase 0 (Orient): Read relevant topic files on-demand for past patterns, assigned model tier
2. Phase 1 (Plan): Planner agent created a structured plan with product + engineering lens
3. Gate 1: Waited for your explicit approval before proceeding

No code was written until you approved. That's MeowKit's discipline.

Next steps

• Cheatsheet: quick reference for all commands
• Workflow Phases: understand Phase 0-6
• Build a Feature: the feature workflow end to end
• Fix a Bug: the bug workflow end to end
• Debug Effectively: structured debugging guide