paperclip/docs/start/quickstart.md

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Quickstart	Get Paperclip running in minutes

Get Paperclip running locally in under 5 minutes.

Quick Start (Recommended)

npx paperclipai onboard --yes

This walks you through setup, configures your environment, and gets Paperclip running.

To start Paperclip again later:

npx paperclipai run

Note: If you used npx for setup, always use npx paperclipai to run commands. The pnpm paperclipai form only works inside a cloned copy of the Paperclip repository (see Local Development below).

Local Development

For contributors working on Paperclip itself. Prerequisites: Node.js 20+ and pnpm 9+.

Clone the repository, then:

pnpm install
pnpm dev

This starts the API server and UI at http://localhost:3100.

No external database required — Paperclip uses an embedded PostgreSQL instance by default.

When working from the cloned repo, you can also use:

pnpm paperclipai run

This auto-onboards if config is missing, runs health checks with auto-repair, and starts the server.

What's Next

Once Paperclip is running:

1. Create your first company in the web UI
2. Define a company goal
3. Create a CEO agent and configure its adapter
4. Build out the org chart with more agents
5. Set budgets and assign initial tasks
6. Hit go — agents start their heartbeats and the company runs

Learn the key concepts behind Paperclip