Quickstart

This walks through getting a site onto your machine — pulling an existing one or creating a new one — changing it with an AI coding assistant, and publishing it back with the acira CLI.

1. Install the CLI

Install acira with the one-line installer for your platform:

curl -fsSL https://cli.acira.ai/install.sh | sh

On Windows, use the PowerShell installer from the CLI page. The installer verifies the release signature before installing, and acira upgrade keeps it current.

API keys are created in the app under Settings → API Keys. A key is scoped to your account and reaches only the sites you already have access to.

acira auth        # paste your key when prompted
acira whoami      # confirm you're signed in

For CI, set ACIRA_API_KEY in the environment instead of running acira auth.

3. Set up your AI coding editor

Most people build Acira sites with an AI coding assistant — Claude Code is a great default, and Cursor, Codex, and others work too. Install the one you prefer now; you'll point it at the platform in the next step.

The key is that your assistant needs to understand how Acira sites work. The acira init command (run after you pull, below) writes an AGENTS.md guide into the project — the same platform contract the in-app coding agent uses — so your editor authors correct, idiomatic Acira code instead of guessing.

Prefer to hand-edit? Any editor works — you can skip the AI-specific steps.

4. Set up your workspace and sites

Work in a parent folder that holds one subfolder per site, with the shared AI guide at its root. Start the workspace, then add sites — pull ones you already have, or create brand-new ones:

mkdir clients && cd clients
acira init                  # writes AGENTS.md at the workspace root, above your sites

acira pull acme-dental      # pull an existing site       → ./acme-dental
acira create northwind      # or spin up a brand-new site  → ./northwind

acira create provisions a new site and pulls it to a subfolder, ready to build — handy for agencies standing up a new client site straight from the terminal, without the guided onboarding.

Your workspace now looks like this:

clients/
  AGENTS.md         ← one guide, shared by every site
  acme-dental/      ← pulled
  northwind/        ← created

Open the whole clients/ folder in your AI editor so the assistant reads AGENTS.md and can work across all your sites at once. Re-run acira init after a CLI upgrade to refresh the guide. The guide files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .codex/) are developer-local — they live above your sites and the CLI never publishes them.

5. Preview and make a change

Work from inside a site folder. Start a local preview that behaves like the real site — pages, handlers, the database, and login all work:

cd acme-dental
acira preview

Now make your change. With clients/ open in your editor, describe what you want to your AI assistant — "add a contact form that emails me submissions" — and let it edit acme-dental/, or edit the files yourself. See Prompting the agent for briefing tips that apply to AI editors too.

6. Check and publish

From inside the site folder, lint and publish. Publishing runs its own checks server-side and takes the site live:

acira lint
acira publish -m "Add a contact form"

acira status shows what's changed locally and whether the live site has moved on since you pulled.

Next steps