# Install

**hiveloom 1.1.0 is released and available through Python package indexes.** It
requires Python 3.11 or newer.

For the `hiveloom` command, install it as an isolated uv tool:

```bash
uv tool install hiveloom
```

When hiveloom is a dependency of a Python project instead, add it to that
project:

```bash
uv add hiveloom
# or: uv pip install hiveloom
# or: pip install hiveloom
```

Verify the install and explore the contract without making a single API call:

```bash
hiveloom --version
hiveloom schema --annotated
hiveloom catalog tools
```

To pin a release exactly, use `uv tool install "hiveloom==1.1.0"` or
`uv add "hiveloom==1.1.0"`.

## Development UI

The optional [Hiveloom workbench](/workbench) is a chat-first UI for creating,
testing, running, inspecting, and improving harnesses. It ships separately — as
an npm package rather than a Python one — so production environments only carry
the framework:

```bash
npx hiveloom-workbench
# http://127.0.0.1:8770
```

Nothing to install: `npx` fetches the interface, its Python API, and the
launcher that wires them together, then runs them against whichever interpreter
already has hiveloom. `hiveloom ui` is a shortcut to the same command.
Contributors can run the UI and API with hot reload from a source checkout via
`devtools/ui/dev.sh`.

## API keys

hiveloom talks to whichever lab the harness names. The default provider is
`claude`, which reads `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`:

```bash
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-...
```

`hiveloom models` lists every builtin provider and the environment variable it
expects — OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, DeepSeek, xAI, Groq, OpenRouter, Together,
Fireworks, Ollama, and vLLM are all builtin. See
[Models and providers](/models) for switching an existing harness.

Local providers (Ollama, vLLM) need no key, which makes them a reasonable way
to try the runtime before spending anything.

## From source

```bash
git clone https://github.com/FrancescoMrn/hiveloom.git
cd hiveloom
uv sync --extra dev
```

## Agent guidance

Guidance for coding agents ships inside the wheel — no network fetch required:

```bash
hiveloom guide --list
```