Install

Install quickstarted and check what your machine can enforce.

Run it without installing anything

uvx quickstarted run --example streamlit --agent replay

Three example tasks travel with the package, so there is nothing to clone and no key to set. quickstarted examples lists them. This is also the right way to use the tool from a JavaScript or Go project, where a Python environment is friction you did not ask for.

Install it properly

Agent mode is what you came for, so install a vendor SDK with it:

pip install "quickstarted[claude]"       # Anthropic
pip install "quickstarted[openai]"       # OpenAI
pip install "quickstarted[gemini]"       # Google
pip install "quickstarted[all-agents]"   # all three

Python 3.9 or newer. The only runtime dependency the harness itself adds is PyYAML; the rest is the SDK you chose.

pip install quickstarted

The bare install runs replay mode only, which needs no model and no key. That is the right install for a CI job that just checks the documented commands still work.

Check your machine

quickstarted doctor

quickstarted doctor
  backends available: docker, seatbelt, local
  auto would choose:  docker
  docker:             daemon reachable
  default image:      python:3.12-slim pulled
  claude:             SDK installed, key from QUICKSTARTED_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
  openai:             SDK missing, no key (QUICKSTARTED_OPENAI_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY)
  gemini:             SDK missing, no key (QUICKSTARTED_GEMINI_API_KEY or GOOGLE_API_KEY)
  price book:         none (token counts only)
  config file:        none
  tasks found:        14 in tasks/

It reports every provider, not only the one whose adapter happens to be imported, says which environment variable a key came from, and tells you whether the default image is already pulled. The first agent run otherwise stalls on a silent docker pull that looks like a hung harness.

Tasks execute commands that a model wrote after reading somebody else's documentation, which is untrusted code by any reasonable definition. The backend decides what those commands can touch:

Backend	Available when	Enforced
docker	a Docker daemon is running	yes
seatbelt	macOS	yes
local	always	no

If doctor reports local only, install Docker before you point this at a project you did not write. quickstarted run will refuse to use local until you pass --allow-unenforced. See Sandboxing.

Set an API key

Keys are read from QUICKSTARTED_* names first:

export QUICKSTARTED_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

The vendor-standard names (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, GOOGLE_API_KEY) work as a fallback, which is what CI usually sets. The prefixed names exist so a key can live in your shell without other tooling on the same machine finding it and billing against it. Nothing in the sandbox ever sees either name; the executor builds a scrubbed environment, and a test asserts that no key reaches a command.

Next: your first run.