---
name: install-founder
description: Install Founder for the person you are helping. Follow these steps when they ask you to "install Founder", "set up Founder" or "get founder.dev".
---

# Install Founder

You are an AI coding agent. The person you work for wants Founder. Do the steps below yourself. Don't ask them to type commands.

## What Founder is

- A team of AI agents (product lead, designer, engineer, devops, GTM) that plan, build, launch and run an app.
- It adds a skill and five specialists to your coding agent, plus the `founder` command.
- `founder deploy` puts the app online on Founder Cloud, after a launch check.
- No account is needed to start. An account is needed only to go live.

## What Founder never does

- It makes no model calls of its own. All the work runs on the person's own coding agent.
- It never reads secrets: no `.env` values, keys, tokens or passwords. Don't paste them into Founder.
- It never removes MCP servers or plugins that are already installed.

## Status

Some of this is not live yet. The npm package `founder.dev` and the curl install are not published yet, so step 1 can fail. When it does, go to step 2. Check each step's result before you go on.

## Step 1: one command (preferred)

Run:

```
npx founder.dev init
```

It sets up Founder in the coding agents it finds (Claude Code today) and makes a key for this computer. Running it twice is safe.

If `npx` isn't found (there's no Node on this computer), run these instead. The first installs the `founder` command on macOS or Linux into `~/.founder/bin`; the second does what `npx founder.dev init` does:

```
curl -fsSL https://storage.googleapis.com/get-founder-cli/install.sh | sh
~/.founder/bin/founder init
```

Use the full path `~/.founder/bin/founder` for the rest of this session: your shell won't find `founder` by name until a new terminal opens. If `~/.founder/bin/founder` doesn't exist after the install, the curl install failed; go to step 2.

It worked if it prints a line starting with `✓` and this runs (after the curl install, run `~/.founder/bin/founder --version`):

```
founder --version
```

If `npx founder.dev init` fails (npm says 404 or "not found", or it exits with an error), or `founder --version` doesn't run, go to step 2.

## Step 2: the Claude Code plugin

In Claude Code, run these two commands:

```
/plugin marketplace add get-founder/plugin
/plugin install founder@founder
```

If you can't run slash commands, run the same thing from a terminal:

```
claude plugin marketplace add get-founder/plugin
claude plugin install founder@founder
```

It worked if `claude plugin list` shows `founder`. Tell the person to start a new session to meet their team.

If this fails too, stop. Tell the person, in one line, which command failed and what it printed. Don't guess other addresses.

Other agents (Codex, Cursor, Cowork) are not supported yet. Say so plainly if the person uses one.

## Step 3: sign in, only when needed

No account is needed to plan or build. Run this only when the person wants to go live, check names for their product, or raise the daily limit:

```
founder login
```

It opens a sign-in page in their browser. That page is the one thing the person does themselves. Then come back and carry on. If `founder` isn't installed (step 1 failed), say that sign-in waits until the `founder` command is available.

## After installing

Tell the person, in plain words, what was installed and what they can ask for next, for example "plan my app" or "build the sign-up page".

## More

- Site: https://founder.dev
- Pricing: https://founder.dev/pricing
- Index for agents: https://founder.dev/llms.txt