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Install

Three install paths. Pick one. Mix later if needed. Already running OpenClaw or Hermes?
Your agent now reads skills/RESOLVER.md once per request, routes intent to the right skill, executes. New entity mentions create new pages. Daily cron runs enrichment overnight. Scaffolded skills are first-class files in your agent repo — edit freely. To pull upstream modusbrain improvements later, modusbrain skillpack reference <name> diffs your local copy vs the bundle. The legacy skillpack install managed-block model was retired in v0.36.0.0; if you’re upgrading from an older release, run modusbrain skillpack migrate-fence once to strip the legacy fence and keep your existing skill rows. To upgrade later: modusbrain upgrade runs schema migrations + post-upgrade prompts (chunker bumps, the v0.36.2.0 ZeroEntropy switch). Always TTY-only; non-TTY upgrades skip prompts with informational stderr lines.

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2. CLI standalone

No agent platform, just shell + MCP-aware editor.
If bun install -g hits a postinstall error (Bun blocks postinstall hooks in some environments), the CLI prints a recovery hint pointing at #218. Run modusbrain doctor to diagnose, then modusbrain apply-migrations --yes manually. The deterministic fallback is git clone https://github.com/thebuildceo/modusbrain.git ~/modusbrain && cd ~/modusbrain && bun install && bun link.
The init flow detects your repo size and suggests Supabase for brains > 1000 markdown files. To switch later:
For shared / large / multi-machine deployments (a team or company brain with multiple users hitting one server over HTTP MCP with OAuth scoping per user), follow the dedicated walkthrough: Tutorial: set up ModusBrain as your company brain. API keys live in ~/.modusbrain/config.json (file plane) or env vars (OPENAI_API_KEY, ZEROENTROPY_API_KEY, VOYAGE_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY). Set via CLI:
Common follow-ups:
Wire this same local brain into your coding agent — zero server, zero token:
The agent spawns modusbrain serve as a stdio subprocess against your local brain. Full walkthrough (both this local path and connecting to a remote brain), plus the brain-first protocol to paste into CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md: Give your coding agent a memory.

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3. MCP server (any MCP client)

Wire a coding agent to a remote brain in one command (when you have an HTTP server + a bearer token): modusbrain connect prints a paste-ready setup block, or --install runs it and smoke-tests the token.
Per-client setup guides live in docs/mcp/: The HTTP server ships with an admin SPA at /admin, an SSE activity feed at /admin/events, DCR-style client registration, scope-gated read/write/admin access, and rate limiting.

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Thin-client mode

Connect to someone else’s brain without running a local engine:
Useful for: team mounts, brain-as-a-service deployments, dev machines without disk space. Most local commands refuse with a paste-ready hint. See docs/architecture/topologies.md.

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Verifying the install

If anything’s yellow, modusbrain doctor names the fix command in the message. Most issues are missing API keys or stale schema (modusbrain upgrade --force-schema).