The non-coder path | torta docs

One line pasted into Terminal once, and then everything happens in your browser.

You need about ten minutes and one app called Terminal, which you use exactly once. After that, everything happens in your browser, by clicking.

Step 1: open Terminal

Hold Command and press Space. A search box appears.
Type terminal and press Enter.

A small window opens with a blinking cursor. It looks bare. Leave it open.

Step 2: paste this one line and press Enter

Copy this, click into the Terminal window, paste, and press Enter:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://docs.torta.app/install.sh)"

That is the only thing you have to type. A lot of text scrolls past. Let it.

Along the way it may ask you for two things:

The password you use to log in, if it has to install Node. Nothing appears on screen while you type it. That is normal. Type it, press Enter.
To sign in to your Anthropic account, in a browser window that opens by itself. Sign in, then come back to the Terminal window and wait.

When it finishes, your browser opens by itself on the setup questions.

What that line actually does

It is not a black box. It prints a plain sentence before each step, and each step checks first whether the work is already done:

Checks that this is a Mac or a Linux computer it knows how to set up.
Installs Node, the engine torta runs on, if it is not already here.
Checks where a tool would install. If that folder is already one you can write to, it leaves everything alone. If it is not, which is what causes permission errors, it makes a folder you own at ~/.torta/npm, installs into that, and adds one line to your ~/.zshrc so a new Terminal window can find it.
Installs Claude Code, the AI that does the work, and asks you to sign in, unless you are signed in already.
Starts torta, which opens your browser.

Nothing is sent anywhere. There is no account with us and no tracking. You can read the whole thing first at docs.torta.app/install.sh.

Safe to run twice. A second run finds everything already there and goes straight to opening your browser.

Step 3: answer the questions

Torta asks one question per page, with a progress bar at the top. The first page asks what are we setting up?

Something new, if you are starting from nothing.
A folder I already have, if there is already a project on this computer. That path is Step 3b.

Something new is five more questions:

Your name, which is what the agents call you.
Project name, in plain words, such as coffee shop site.
Where it lives, already filled in as Documents, then projects, then your project name. To put it somewhere else, press choose project path and pick a folder.
Who works on it. Choose Solo for your first project.
What you’re building. Tick the boxes that apply.

Then a summary, so seven pages in all. You are not asked what to build first. That is a conversation, on the next screen. Nothing is created on your computer until you press create workspace.

Step 3b: if you already have an app

Pick a folder I already have. Torta wraps the project you have been working on. You do not move to a new folder, and you do not lose anything.

Your code moves one level down, inside your own folder. That folder becomes the project, and each project inside it goes into .projects/, in the folder belonging to the agent who owns it. Same files, not copies.
Your git history comes with it, along with your branch and the place you push to. Nothing is rewritten.
Nothing already in the folder is overwritten. Where torta needs a name you are using, it adds its lines inside a marked section of your file, or keeps both copies and says which one is now in use.
All of it can be undone. Torta writes ADOPTED.md in your folder listing everything it did, and the last line of that file is the command that puts it all back.

The five questions are the same, worded for a folder that exists: the one about where it lives asks which folder torta should take over. Two extra pages appear after it:

What is in that folder. Torta reads your files, and then Claude Code reads them properly and says who on the team owns each project it found. Nothing has been written yet, and it tells you while it is reading.
Who owns each project. Each one arrives with an answer, a line saying why, and the folder it would move into. Change any of them and that folder changes with it. A project you would rather leave alone stays exactly where it is, and so does one nobody could work out.

That is eight pages instead of seven: two more, and one fewer, because what you are building is worked out from what was adopted rather than asked. Any kind of project: React, a Node service, Python, Go, a folder of notes. One limit, said plainly: your android/ folder comes along with the code, but torta will not build or ship it yet, which it says on screen before you agree.

The summary page shows the whole plan before a file moves. To read that same plan in Terminal instead, this line writes nothing at all:

npx -y torta-ai adopt ~/Documents/projects/my-app --dry-run

Step 4: tell an agent what you want

The page you are on becomes your board, with a terminal panel already open on one agent. It says hello and asks what you want built. Type your answer the way you would text a friend.

It then asks three short things, one at a time: what it should do, why it matters, and what one number would tell you it worked. Rough answers are fine. It tidies them up with you, writes the ticket, and sends it back for approval.

Step 5: from here it is all clicking

There are four tabs:

needs you holds decisions waiting on you, as plain questions. The ticket the agent just wrote is there: press approve and the work starts.
terminal shows each agent working, live. Click an agent and type to it. Drag the panel to any edge of the screen.
settings lists the accounts your project needs, such as GitHub and hosting. Each row is green when it is ready, or tells you the exact step to fix it.
board shows every agent’s to-do, doing and done columns. Until you have asked for something it is empty, and says so.

Torta starts nothing you have not approved. When an agent gets stuck it asks you rather than guessing.

Stopping and starting again

To stop: click the Terminal window, then hold Control and press C.

To start again, open Terminal and paste this shorter line:

npx -y torta-ai start

Your board comes back where you left it. To be explicit about which project to open, add the folder:

npx -y torta-ai start ~/Documents/projects/my-project

Pasting the long setup line again also works, and takes a moment longer.

Checking what is installed

To see what is already on your computer without changing anything:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://docs.torta.app/install.sh)" -- --check

It prints one row each for your computer, Node, npm, where tools install and whether that folder is yours to write to, the line in your shell profile, Claude Code and torta, then stops. Each row says what is true now, not what it plans to do, and nothing is changed.

If something goes wrong

The Troubleshooting page has every message you are likely to meet. The four most common:

“command not found: curl”: rare, and usually means the Terminal window is not the one macOS ships. Open the built-in Terminal and try again.
“torta: command not found” right after it finished: close the Terminal window, open a new one, and try again. The new window reads the line the setup added to your profile; the old one never will.
The browser did not open: the Terminal window prints a web address that starts with http://localhost. Copy it into your browser’s address bar.
You lost the board: it is at that same localhost address. Check the Terminal window is still running.

If you would rather do it by hand

The setup line does nothing you cannot do yourself in four steps.

Install Node. Go to nodejs.org and press the big green download button. Open the file that arrives, then click Continue, Continue, Install, and type your computer password. Any recent version works; torta needs 18 or newer, and the site offers something newer than that. Nothing visible happens afterwards, because Node has no window of its own.
Install Claude Code and sign in. In Terminal:
```
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code && claude
```
Sign in when the browser opens, come back, then type /exit.
Start torta.
```
npx -y torta-ai start
```
Answer the questions, from Step 3 above.

If step 2 says permission denied or EACCES, your computer is refusing to install into a shared folder. This is the one case the setup line handles for you. To do it by hand, point npm at a folder you own instead of reaching for sudo:

npm config set prefix ~/.torta/npm
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.torta/npm/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

Then close the Terminal window, open a new one, and run the install again.