Installation

The SI installs entirely inside your home folder. There is no system-wide footprint, no package to register, and no step that asks for admin rights or sudo on any platform.

Lives in your home folder

Everything the SI writes goes under ~/.si (and ~/.claude for the Claude Code integration itself). Installing, updating, and removing it never touches system directories and never needs elevated privileges.

Prerequisites

Supported platforms

The SI runs on macOS 12 and newer, mainstream Linux (glibc 2.31 or newer — Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 11+, Fedora 34+), Windows 10 (build 1809+) and Windows 11, and WSL. Both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs are supported.

Hard requirements

These must already be present — the installer cannot provide them for you:

git on your PATH. The SI uses git locally for its own memory store; the installer checks for it up front.
Claude Code — the claude CLI. The SI is a plugin that runs on top of Claude Code, so Claude Code must be installed first.
A POSIX shell. Built in on macOS and Linux. On Windows you need Git Bash or WSL, because the SI's hooks are bash scripts.
Internet access during installation.
(Windows) PowerShell 5.1 or newer, which ships with Windows.

Soft requirements

These are bootstrapped for you — don't install them by hand:

Python 3.10+ is optional. If a suitable Python is already present it is used; otherwise the installer brings its own managed Python.
No compiler toolchain is needed — no Rust, no MSVC, no build tools.

Install

One command. It downloads the latest release, checks it, and runs the installer.

macOS, Linux, and WSL

curl -fsSL https://si.higgsdyson.com/install.sh | sh

That runs non-interactively in Simple mode with safe defaults. On an interactive terminal — or a source-clone install — pass -y to accept all defaults up front:

curl -fsSL https://si.higgsdyson.com/install.sh | sh -s -- -y

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://si.higgsdyson.com/install.ps1 | iex

Windows also needs Git Bash or WSL present — the SI's hooks are bash scripts — and the installer will tell you if it's missing. Prefer WSL? Install it (wsl --install) and use the curl … | sh command above inside your WSL shell instead.

From source (contributors)

If you have a clone of the SI repository, run the bundled installer directly instead: ./install.sh (macOS/Linux/WSL), or .\install.ps1 / install.cmd (Windows). This is only for people working on the SI itself — a normal install does not need the repository.

Flag style

Use the --flag form on every platform, including Windows — never the PowerShell -Param style. For example, updates use --update, not -Update.

The one question

An interactive install pauses exactly once to ask how you want to set things up:

Simple (recommended) — just press Enter. Zero decisions, solo and local-only, and free local models are switched on automatically if they're detected.
Advanced — make the optional choices up front: federation, local models, the background service, and the Uhura sentinel.
Update — refresh the code without touching your memory or settings.

The featured curl … | sh and irm … | iex one-liners run non-interactively — they skip this prompt and install in Simple mode. The one question appears only on an interactive terminal, such as a source-clone ./install.sh.

What gets installed

Two folders are created under your home directory, plus a small, careful edit to one settings file:

Location	What it holds
`~/.si/`	The runtime: memory, the background process, an isolated environment, and logs.
`~/.claude/skills/si/`	The plugin itself, which Claude Code auto-discovers.
`~/.claude/settings.json`	An additive edit that merges in only the SI's own hooks and permission rules, leaving everything else untouched.

Idempotent

The installer is safe to re-run. It never overwrites your memory and never clobbers settings you've tuned — it only adds what's missing.

First run

Restart Claude Code or start a new session. From then on the SI loads itself automatically. Watch for the SI ONLINE greeting — it confirms that memory has loaded and the SI is running. The very first session does a little extra: a quick look at your project to learn its shape. That's normal and happens only once.

Verify it's working

A clean install finishes with SI INSTALL: GREEN and exit code 0. Warnings about optional pieces (local models, the background service, federation) don't affect the core — the SI still works fully without them. The SI ONLINE greeting appears the next time you start Claude Code: that's the SI itself confirming it has loaded.

Updating

Just tell it. Once the SI is installed you talk to it, not at it:

update the SI

That is the whole instruction. The SI recognises what you mean, runs the installer, applies any migrations, verifies the result, and reports back in one line. Hold at the current version, what changed in the last update? and roll that back work the same way — you are describing an outcome, not remembering a command.

Most of the time you never even start it. The SI notices a new release in the background, downloads and verifies it, and then — at the start of a session, never mid-task — tells you it is ready and asks. Say yes. Your memory and settings are left untouched.

Why new installs use a shell command and updates don't

A fresh machine has no SI yet, so there is nothing to talk to — the shell is the only way in. After that, there is. Typing command syntax at something built to understand you is a step backwards.

The slash commands still exist and still work — /si:si-upgrade, and /si:si-upgrade --rollback to step back to the previous release. Reach for them when you want to be unambiguous, when you are scripting, or if a session is behaving oddly enough that you would rather not rely on it interpreting you correctly.

Installs made from a source clone update the usual way instead: git pull && ./install.sh --update.

Uninstalling

The uninstaller is kept with your install. Preview exactly what would be removed first:

~/.si/uninstall.sh --dry-run

Then remove it:

~/.si/uninstall.sh

On Windows, run ~/.si/uninstall.ps1 from PowerShell. Before removing anything, the uninstaller offers to back up your memory to a timestamped archive outside ~/.claude — and it aborts rather than destroy memory if that backup fails. It then removes the SI and strips only its own entries from settings.json.

Higgs Dyson LLC · SI documentation