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Install ~Alter

Installing anything is optional. The way in is your AI client: add a custom connector at https://mcp.truealter.com in Claude, ChatGPT, Le Chat, or Perplexity, sign in through your browser, and choose your ~handle. The Getting Started guide and the client guides cover that path. This page is the deepest layer, for people who want the command line or the always-on daemon.

Two artifacts ship: the alter command (the CLI) and alter-runtime (the optional always-on daemon). The one-line installers set up the CLI; the native packages carry the daemon and integrate with your system’s updates. If you want the CLI route, the one-liner for your platform is enough.

Windows

Open PowerShell and run the one-liner. It fetches and verifies the official @truealter/cli package, puts the alter command on your PATH, and installs Node 20+ via winget if it is missing.

bash

irm https://truealter.com/install.ps1 | iex

The full Windows walkthrough covers Node handling, verification, and re-runs. If you already manage Node yourself, install straight from the registry with npm install -g @truealter/cli (see the npm guide).

macOS

The shell one-liner is the recommended route and installs the CLI. A verify-first variant (download, check the sha256, then run) is printed in the script header.

bash

curl -sSf https://truealter.com/install.sh | bash

Prefer a managed install? The optional daemon ships through the Homebrew tap with brew install true-alter/tap/alter-runtime, updated alongside the rest of your brew packages. The CLI is also on npm with npm install -g @truealter/cli if you manage Node yourself.

Linux

The shell one-liner works on every distribution and touches no system packages.

bash

curl -sSf https://truealter.com/install.sh | bash

Native packages integrate the optional alter-runtime daemon with your distribution’s package manager:

•Arch Linux (AUR): yay -S alter-runtime, for Arch and Arch-based distributions (Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Garuda).
•Debian / Ubuntu (apt): sudo apt install alter-runtime, via the apt repository.
•Fedora / openSUSE (rpm): sudo dnf install alter-runtime on Fedora; zypper on openSUSE.
•Alpine (apk): sudo apk add alter-runtime.
•NixOS (nixpkgs): nix profile install nixpkgs#alter-runtime, a declarative install from nixpkgs.

Universal

Anywhere Node 20+ runs, install the CLI straight from npm:

bash

npm install -g @truealter/cli

Turn the daemon on or off

The native packages install alter-runtime, the optional always-on daemon. It is never required: the alter command alone signs you in and keeps you known. If you do run it, you can turn it on or off at any time. The commands are the same on every platform; alter-runtime targets systemd, launchd, or the Windows Service for you.

bash

alter-runtime init      # first run only: device keypair + service unit
alter-runtime start     # turn it on (and start on boot)
alter-runtime status    # check whether it is running
alter-runtime stop      # turn it off