Quickstart

Run your first OpenWalrus agent in under a minute — start the daemon and chat.

This guide gets you from zero to a working agent in under a minute.

1. Start the daemon

The daemon manages agents, tools, and connections in the background:

walrus daemon

On first run, it creates the default configuration at ~/.openwalrus/walrus.toml and scaffolds the directory structure.

2. Attach to an agent

In another terminal, connect to the default "walrus" agent:

walrus attach

You're now in an interactive REPL. Type a message and press Enter to chat.

3. Use a specific agent

Connect to a named agent:

walrus attach --agent my-agent

Agent definitions live in ~/.openwalrus/agents/ as Markdown files with YAML frontmatter, or as [agents.*] sections in walrus.toml. See agents for details.

4. Configure a model

By default, OpenWalrus uses DeepSeek. To use a different provider, edit ~/.openwalrus/walrus.toml:

[walrus]
model = "deepseek"

[model.deepseek]
model = "deepseek-chat"
api_key = "${DEEPSEEK_API_KEY}"

See providers for all supported models and API standards.

What's next

Configuration — customize directories, models, and services
Agents — understand agent lifecycle and config
Built-in tools — filesystem and shell access