Journeys
Setup & Onboarding
Go from a freshly installed binary to a fully connected setup: LeanCTX auto-detects every AI editor on your machine, writes their MCP config and a shell hook, then verifies the connection — usually in a single command.
You are installing for the first time
onboardsetupinstallbootstrapinitdoctorstatus
You just installed the lean-ctx binary and nothing is wired up yet. This journey covers every command that connects LeanCTX to your editors and your shell — and exactly what each one does.
Quick path
For most users, setup is three commands:
# 1. Install
curl -fsSL https://leanctx.com/install.sh | sh
# 2. Auto-configure everything
lean-ctx onboard
# 3. Restart your shell
source ~/.zshrc
That’s it. onboard auto-detects every AI tool on your machine and writes the MCP config for each one.
What “being set up” means
For LeanCTX to work, three things must be true:
- Your AI tool knows about LeanCTX — its MCP config lists the
lean-ctxserver - Your shell knows about LeanCTX — a hook compresses command output
- A data directory exists —
~/.lean-ctx/holds stats, sessions, and config
Available setup commands
| Command | When to use |
|---|---|
lean-ctx onboard | First-time setup, zero questions |
lean-ctx setup | Full 12-step wizard with all options |
lean-ctx install --repair | Fix drift without prompts |
lean-ctx bootstrap | CI/automation (non-interactive) |
lean-ctx init --agent <name> | Wire up one specific editor |
lean-ctx doctor | Diagnose connection issues |
lean-ctx status | Quick “am I connected?” check |
Verify your setup
After onboarding, confirm everything is connected:
lean-ctx status # quick "am I connected?" check
lean-ctx doctor # deep diagnosis, with fixes for any drift
status shows which editors are wired up and whether the daemon is running. If anything is off, doctor explains the cause and lean-ctx doctor --fix repairs it.
One editor at a time
If you only want to connect a single tool — or add one later — use init:
lean-ctx init --agent cursor # or: claude, codex, opencode, pi, gemini, windsurf, zed …
Each agent’s exact MCP config, shell hook and prompt snippet are generated for you in the per-editor setup on the Getting Started page.
Beyond coding
Once connected, your agent gets more than compressed file reads. The Web & Research layer lets it pull web pages, PDFs and YouTube transcripts into context as compressed, cited evidence — no extra setup required.
Full documentation
The complete setup guide — including platform-specific installation, manual editor configs, troubleshooting, and the detailed 12-step reference — lives on the Getting Started page.