Installation

Install Friday, authenticate with GitHub, and verify everything works. When you're done, head to the Quickstart for your first conversation.

Requirements

Install Friday

brew tap HeadstartAI/taps
brew install HeadstartAI/taps/friday

Verify the install:

friday --version

Authenticate with GitHub

gh auth login

If you have multiple GitHub accounts, run gh auth status to check which one is active. Switch accounts with gh auth switch. See the GitHub CLI docs for details.

Terminal recommendations

We recommend iTerm2 or another modern terminal emulator. The default macOS Terminal works, but rendering can look off.

iTerm2 scrollbar issues

If you see scrollbar rendering glitches in iTerm2, follow the workaround in this Textual issue.

macOS default Terminal rendering

If Friday looks wrong in the default macOS Terminal, apply the fixes from the Textual FAQ.

Shift+Enter in VS Code or Cursor

Friday's integrated terminal in VS Code or Cursor needs a one-time keybinding to support Shift+Enter for newlines. After your first launch, run:

/terminal-setup

Friday detects your editor and writes the keybinding. If you use a different terminal, Ctrl+J always inserts a newline.

Beta channel

Friday ships a separate friday-beta formula for early access to upcoming features.

Install

brew tap HeadstartAI/taps  # skip if you already tapped above
brew install HeadstartAI/taps/friday-beta

Switch between stable and beta

friday-beta is keg-only, so you link/unlink to switch the active binary:

# Switch to beta
brew unlink friday && brew link --force friday-beta

# Switch back to stable
brew unlink friday-beta && brew link friday

Add these as shell aliases:

alias go_friday_beta='brew unlink friday && brew link --force friday-beta'
alias go_friday_stable='brew unlink friday-beta && brew link friday'

Update beta

brew update && brew upgrade friday-beta

If you run into issues, reinstall:

brew update && brew reinstall friday-beta
# or for stable:
brew update && brew reinstall friday

Update Friday (stable)

friday --update

Uninstall

brew uninstall friday

State under ~/.friday/ is left in place. Remove it manually if you want a clean slate. See File & directory layout for what's there.

Next

You have Friday installed. Open a terminal in a git repo, run friday, and follow the Quickstart.