Install

Pick the path that matches you. Windows and Apple-silicon Mac users can install a packaged app; a Linux user or developer can use pip.

Windows — one-click installer (for everyone)

The friendliest path: no Python, no terminal, no configuration.

1. Download Collie-Setup.exe from the latest release. Release installers are signed with Azure Artifact Signing; the release workflow verifies the Windows trust chain before publishing the file.
2. Double-click it. The installer itself is localized in Simplified/Traditional Chinese, English, Spanish, and many other languages. Collie's workbench currently offers English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
3. Click through. When it finishes, open Collie from the Start menu or the desktop icon.
4. On first launch, pick a brain: an existing Claude, Codex, or Grok subscription connects in one click, or paste an API key. That's it.

Everything Collie needs ships inside the installer — an embeddable Python, the semantic-memory engine, the desktop window (WebView2), and the browser extension. It installs per-user (no admin prompt) and cleanly uninstalls from Add or remove programs. During an upgrade, Setup keeps the previous bundled runtime until the new install succeeds and restores it if copying is cancelled or fails; your ~/.collie settings, memory, and missions are outside that replacement boundary.

Optional extras during setup

Two checkboxes let you turn on the live desktop (a clock, weather and your apps behind your icons) and the real-browser bridge at logon. Both are off by default and covered in The desktop app.

macOS — signed app

1. Download Collie-arm64.dmg from the latest release.
2. Open the disk image and drag Collie to Applications.
3. Open Collie and choose a model provider. Release builds are signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarised; the packaged app currently targets Apple silicon and macOS 12 or newer.

Linux and developers — pip / uv

The core is stdlib-only, so the base install is tiny.

# from source (PyPI publish is planned):
git clone https://github.com/colliehq/collie && cd collie
pip install -e ".[local,dev]"

Then let Collie finish provisioning itself:

collie setup     # installs optional deps, pre-downloads the memory model, picks a provider
collie           # opens the terminal chat

Optional extras

Extra	What it adds
local	Semantic memory — granite-107m via onnxruntime (~55 MB, multilingual). What collie setup installs.
tui	The rich terminal chat (collie tui).
browser	Playwright — only for collie browser-bridge --browser (a managed Chromium with the extension preloaded, for CI / no-login use). The everyday real-browser control uses your own Chrome + the extension and needs no extra.
search	Keyless web search (DuckDuckGo).
acp	Editor integration over the Agent Client Protocol (collie acp).
fastembed	Opt-in jina-v3 and other fastembed models.

# run from the cloned checkout above
pip install -e ".[local,tui,search]"

Semantic memory is optional

Without the local extra, memory runs on BM25 keyword recall — it works out of the box, it just isn't semantic. Collie never silently falls back to a low-quality embedder.

Staying up to date

Open Settings → General → Updates and press Check for updates, or turn on Check for updates automatically to have Collie ask GitHub about once a day (off by default; see Privacy). When a newer release exists, a small dot appears on the Settings button and the Updates card shows its release notes.

• Windows installer copies get Install and restart: Collie downloads the release you were shown, checks its published digest and Authenticode signature, closes, runs Setup silently and starts the same pieces again. A task that is running at that moment is interrupted. If a newer release appears between reading the notice and pressing Install, nothing is installed and the card asks you to check again.
• The macOS app points to the release page: download the new Collie-arm64.dmg and replace Collie in Applications (the app puts no collie command on your PATH).
• Homebrew copies show brew upgrade collie; pip installs show collie update --yes.

From a terminal, collie update reports the latest release and collie update --yes installs it.

After an update, reload the Collie browser extension once: open chrome://extensions and press the reload arrow on the Collie card. Chrome keeps running an unpacked extension until it is reloaded, so until then the browser tools use the old one. Settings → General says so while Chrome is still running an older copy.

Verify it works

collie selftest      # $0 deterministic end-to-end: mock model, real tools + memory + dashboard

If that prints a green verified run, you're set → Quickstart.