Get started with Bahama

Getting up and running with Bahama takes two small pieces:

The Bahama skill teaches your agent how to choose providers, present plans, handle approval, and recover safely.
The bahama CLI performs deterministic provider operations and verifies the result.

The skill gives your coding agent the Bahama workflow. The CLI gives it a safe, predictable way to carry that workflow out. The easiest way to install both is to let your agent handle the setup for you.

Let your agent install Bahama

From your project, open an agent that can read a URL and run shell commands. Give it this prompt:


Read https://bahama.ai/install.md and install Bahama for this workspace.
Tell me what you are going to install before you run the commands.

The install.md page is a short, machine-readable version of these instructions. It tells the agent exactly which public packages to install, asks it to read the installed skill, and ends with a health check. This works across compatible agents without requiring a Bahama-specific chat plugin or hosted tool connection.

Or install it yourself

Bahama requires Node.js 20.19 or newer.

Check Node.js


node --version

If the version is older than 20.19, update Node.js before continuing.

Install the skill

Run this from the application workspace:


npx -y skills add bahamaAI/bahama --skill bahama --yes

The skill is installed for the coding tools supported by the skill installer. It contains guidance, not credentials or deployment code.

Install the CLI


npm install --global bahama

The CLI bundles the open engine and official provider drivers into one executable.

Verify the host setup


bahama setup

Setup confirms that the CLI is executable and explains how the selected agent host should receive the Bahama skill. No MCP server is required.

Check the workspace


bahama doctor

Before a manifest exists, doctor checks the local runtime and installation. After you add bahama.yaml, it also checks the selected provider tools and login sessions.

What happens next

You do not need to log in to every provider you may want to use. When a project selects a provider, Bahama reports exactly what is missing:

installation required means the provider’s official CLI is not installed;
auth required means you need to complete the provider’s login flow;
decision required means Bahama found a real choice, such as two valid provider accounts, and refuses to guess.

Your agent should explain the requirement and help you resolve it when it becomes relevant.

Update or remove Bahama

Update the CLI:


npm update --global bahama

Remove it:


npm uninstall --global bahama

Removing the CLI does not delete deployed applications, databases, provider resources, bahama.yaml, or bahama.lock. Those resources continue to belong to their providers.

Choose your first tutorial

Bahama Cloud

Ask your agent to build a Vite app and deploy it through the managed path.

Vercel + Neon

Ask your agent to build and connect Next.js, Postgres, Vercel, and Neon.