AI Hive Alpha — tester guide

1. Before you install AI Hive 2. Sign in to Claude (AI Hive) 3. Install AI Hive 4. Activate 5. Get started 6. Staying up to date 7. Companion apps 8. Reporting problems 9. Your data

1. Before you install AI Hive

This section is for AI Hive only — companion apps need none of it (see section 7). AI Hive drives real developer tools and runs every AI agent on the Claude Code CLI, so it needs three things on your machine first. Without them the app installs but the agents can't do anything.

1. Node.js 22 or newer — from nodejs.org (the “LTS” build is fine).
2. git — from git-scm.com. Then set your identity once, in a terminal:

   git config --global user.name  "Your Name"
   git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

3. The Claude Code CLI — in a terminal:

   npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

   Then sign in — see the next section, it's the important one.

2. Sign in to your Claude account

This is what actually powers the AI. AI Hive doesn't include an AI subscription of its own — it uses yours. In a terminal, run:

claude /login

That opens a browser to sign in with a paid Claude plan — a Claude Pro ($20/month) or Max subscription, or a Team / Enterprise seat if your organisation has one. Sign in and you're done — this is all most testers need to do.

Optional: use an Anthropic API key instead

You don't need this if you signed in above. But if you'd rather bill against a pay-per-use Anthropic API key than a subscription: set setx ANTHROPIC_API_KEY "sk-ant-…", create %APPDATA%\AI Hive\settings.local.json containing { "auth": { "mode": "api" } }, and restart AI Hive. Most testers skip this — a Pro subscription is simpler.

3. Install AI Hive

1. Sign in to the alpha portal with the email your invitation was sent to, and download the installer.
2. Run it. It installs per-user — no admin rights needed — and lets you pick the folder.
3. Windows will warn you. This alpha build isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen shows an “unknown publisher” notice. That's expected — click More info → Run anyway.

If the Claude CLI is missing, AI Hive tells you at startup with the exact commands to run.

4. Activate

If the key is refused, we already know. The activation screen tells us that it opened and — if a key is rejected — the machine ID, the version, and why it was rejected. Never the key itself. Before this existed, a tester stuck on that screen looked exactly like one who never opened the app, so we couldn't come to you. You'll usually hear from us before you get round to writing in.

5. Get started

• AI Hive opens with a placeholder Example Project. Open the Projects panel and add a real one: a name, a folder on disk, and its stack. A brand-new empty folder is fine — the Hive turns it into a git repo for you.
• You'll sign in as a Super Admin with no password on first run. Set a password when you get a moment (Users panel).
• From there, the overview and side panels walk you through the rest.

6. Staying up to date

Every time you open AI Hive it quietly checks for a newer alpha build. You'll see one of two things:

• “You're running the latest.” Nothing to do.
• “AI Hive X is available.” Click through to the portal, download the new installer, and run it.

7. Companion apps (Hive Studio & Studio Translate)

Some testers get Hive Studio (training-content recorder/editor) and/or Studio Translate (live translation). If you were given either, it appears on the portal as its own one-click installer — you don't need AI Hive to use it, though AI Hive launches it too.

1. Download the companion's installer and run it. Same unsigned-alpha notice as AI Hive — click More info → Run anyway. It installs per-user with a Start-menu shortcut, so you can launch it on its own.
2. Optional — the engines package. Beneath each companion on the download page is its engines package (Studio's recording/transcription/voices, Translate's offline translation/OCR). It's optional and bundles everything it needs — install it for those features; the app runs without it, and those features simply wait until it's in.
3. If you also run AI Hive, open Run → Companions — the companion is already there, detected automatically, ready to launch. (No need to point at it; “Locate…” is only there if you keep a portable copy elsewhere.)
4. They update independently — a Studio update never re-downloads AI Hive, and vice versa.

8. Telling us when something breaks

This is the whole point of an alpha, so we've made it one step. When something goes wrong:

1. Open Run → Incidents (or Changes / Problems), type what happened, and click Log.
2. That's it. The ticket is sent to us automatically, along with a screenshot of the AI Hive window and a note of where you were (project, panel, the build you're on).
3. When we reply, the answer appears back on your own ticket — you'll get a note next time you sign in.

The more you tell us — what you did, what you expected, what happened — the faster we can fix it.

9. What leaves your machine

AI Hive is local-first: your projects and files stay on your computer. The only things that go anywhere are:

• the tickets you choose to raise (with the AI Hive screenshot and context above) — so we can answer them;
• a check-in when you open the app, so we know which build you're on and can offer updates;
• a check-in from the activation screen, before you've entered anything — that it opened, the machine ID it shows, the version, and why a key was rejected if one was. Never the key. The same lines are written locally to install-log.jsonl next to the app's own data, so you can read exactly what was sent;
• your own calls to Claude, through your own account.

Your code and your files are not sent. If you'd rather not take part on those terms, just tell us.