Getting started

There is no public download yet. Today the only way to run Hoook is to build it from source.

Before you start

Hoook is pre-release. The download page collects waitlist signups; it does not serve a build. If you want to run the app now, you build it yourself. Expect rough edges.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Version	Why
Node	22.12.0 or newer	Desktop UI and marketing site
pnpm	10 or newer	Workspace package manager
Rust	1.88 or newer	Tauri shell and the daemon

macOS is the only platform that is actually exercised today. Some file operations shell out to the macOS open command, so Linux and Windows are not usable yet despite what you may read elsewhere.

Run the app

git clone git@github.com:padisoco/hoookio.git
cd hoookio
pnpm install
pnpm dev

pnpm dev builds and starts the daemon, the Vite dev server, and the Tauri window together. It also starts the marketing site, which you can ignore. The daemon is only started automatically in development builds.

Sign in

Hoook uses Clerk for authentication, and it is required: the app renders a sign-in screen until you are authenticated, and every workspace is keyed to a Clerk organization. You need Clerk keys in apps/desktop/.env before the app is usable, and you need to belong to an organization or you will be sent to onboarding.

This is worth flagging plainly, because it cuts against the local-first framing: your data stays on your machine, but you cannot currently open the app without signing in.

Connect a model

Hoook does not ship a model. Set up at least one of these before chatting:

Ollama (no key needed). Run it on 127.0.0.1:11434 and pull a model. Hoook lists whatever Ollama reports, live.
Claude or GPT. Export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY in the environment the daemon runs in. There is no settings field for API keys yet, so a key set anywhere else will not be picked up.

See Chat and models for how model routing works.

Install an agent CLI

Agent tabs launch CLIs that must already be on your PATH. Install whichever you want to use, then see Agent tabs.

Check it worked

The bundled hoook CLI has two commands, both of which talk to the daemon:

hoook ping      # prints "ok" if the daemon is up
hoook version   # prints daemon version info

If ping fails, see Troubleshooting.