Quick Start

Get up and running with wai in 5 minutes.

1. Run the Interactive Tutorial

The best way to learn is by doing. Run:

wai tutorial

This interactive guide covers the PARA method, project phases, and basic commands in a safe sandbox.

2. Initialize Your Workspace

Navigate to your project directory and initialize:

wai init

This creates a .wai/ directory — the single source of truth for all reasoning and workflow state in this repository. Everything wai tracks lives here: artifacts, configs, plugin definitions, and project metadata. It’s designed to be committed alongside your code.

3. Create a Project

In wai, a “Project” is an active work item with a specific goal. Create your first one:

wai new project my-feature

Projects use phases instead of jumping straight to code. This forces the research and design reasoning to exist before implementation, so when you or an agent revisits the project later, the why is already captured — not lost in a chat thread.

4. Capture Research

Projects start in the Research phase. Record your initial thoughts or findings:

wai add research "Evaluated options A and B. Choosing A for performance."

This creates a dated Markdown artifact in .wai/projects/my-feature/research/. The artifact persists across sessions — unlike chat history, it won’t disappear when an agent’s context resets.

5. Advance Through Phases

As your work progresses, advance the project’s phase:

# Advance: Research → Design
wai phase next

# Add a design artifact
wai add design "New API will use standard REST patterns."

Phases (research → design → plan → implement → review → archive) guide what kind of work and artifacts are expected at each stage. They’re flexible — skip forward or go back as needed.

6. Check Your Progress

Get a context-aware overview of your workspace:

wai status

Status is the context-aware next-step command. It shows active projects, their current phases, plugin context (git status, open issues), and smart suggestions for what to do next based on your current state. It’s the first thing to run at the start of any session.

Next Steps

Now that you’ve got the basics down, explore the more powerful features of wai:

Commands Reference — Comprehensive list of all commands and flags.
PARA Method — Learn how wai organizes your work.
Project Phases — Master the workflow from Research to Archive.
Sessions — The prime→close lifecycle for session continuity.
Agent Config Sync — Keep your AI tools in sync.

Troubleshooting

If you run into issues, check the Troubleshooting guide or run:

wai doctor  # Check workspace health

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