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This page covers your first run. If you have not installed Alkera yet, start with Installation.

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First run

The first time you open Alkera, a setup wizard walks you through your preferences, such as the theme, sets up your initial Plugins & Connections, and signs you in. On first run, Alkera creates a .alkera directory at your project root. It holds your chat history, your connection settings, and credentials.
Add .alkera/ to your .gitignore. Never commit it.
How you open Alkera and start a chat depends on whether you use the IDE extension or the CLI.

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IDE extension

Open your data project folder in your IDE. Click the Alkera logo in the left side bar to open Alkera. You can also open it from the command palette. Press Cmd + Shift + P on macOS, or Ctrl + Shift + P on Windows and Linux, then run Open Alkera. Drag the Alkera logo to any side of the IDE to reposition the panel. On first run, Alkera opens the setup wizard. This involves configuring Plugins & Connections. Once it finishes, you can start a chat in the panel by selecting the model and typing within the chat composer.

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CLI

Sign in first:
Alkera prints a sign-in URL and opens your browser. If the browser does not open, for example when you are working over SSH, navigate to the URL yourself. You can approve on any device. Running alkera with no arguments opens the chat. Run it from the root directory of your data project:
Alkera uses the current directory as the project root by default. To point it at another project, pass the path:
The initial setup wizard will guide you through configuring Plugins & Connections. Once past initial setup, use /model to select your desired model and effort for your new chat. Then, enter a prompt into the chat composer to begin a new chat.

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Learn more

Agent & Tools

Permission modes and effects, and what the agent is allowed to do.

Plugins & Connections

How Alkera reaches your data stack, and what each integration can do.

Data Lineage

How your data is produced, and what breaks if you change it.

Knowledge Base

What your data means, and what your team decided about it.

Teams

Organizations, teams, members, and roles.