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:

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.
The first thing you want built, in three plain sentences: what it should do, who it is for, and how you will know it is finished.

Nothing is created on your computer until you press create workspace.

Step 4: from here it is all clicking

The page you are on becomes your board. There are four tabs:

needs you holds decisions waiting on you, as plain questions. Your first feature is already 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.

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.