Quickstart

This guide gets you from zero to a running PM + Dev Lead + Engineer team using the bundled molecule-dev template.

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop (or any Docker daemon) running locally
• Go 1.25+ and Node 20+ if building from source
• An LLM API key (Claude, OpenRouter, or Gemini)

Option A: One-command start (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/Molecule-AI/molecule-core.git
cd molecule-core
./scripts/dev-start.sh

This starts everything: Postgres, Redis, Platform (Go on :8080), and Canvas (Next.js on :3000). Press Ctrl-C to stop all services.

Option B: Docker Compose

git clone https://github.com/Molecule-AI/molecule-core.git
cd molecule-core
docker compose up -d

This starts the full stack including Langfuse (:3001) and Temporal (:8233).

Option C: Manual setup

# 1. Start infrastructure
./infra/scripts/setup.sh    # Postgres, Redis, Langfuse, Temporal

# 2. Start platform
cd platform && go run ./cmd/server    # API on :8080

# 3. Start canvas (new terminal)
cd canvas && npm install && npm run dev    # UI on :3000

2. Open the canvas

Navigate to http://localhost:3000. You should see the empty state with template cards.

3. Deploy from a template

Click any template card to deploy a workspace instantly. Or import a full org template:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/org/import \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"dir":"molecule-dev"}'

This provisions the 12-workspace dev team — PM, Research Lead and 3 researchers, Dev Lead and 5 engineers, plus Security/QA/UIUX auditors — each as its own Docker container.

4. Talk to PM

PM is the entry point. Click the PM node on the canvas, open the Chat tab, and send a task:

"Add a 'Last seen' column to the user list table on the admin page."

PM will break the request into specific assignments, fan them out to the right leads in parallel, verify the results, and report back when the work is shipped.

5. Set up secrets

Most agents need an LLM API key. Set it as a global secret so all workspaces inherit it:

curl -X PUT http://localhost:8080/settings/secrets \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"key":"ANTHROPIC_API_KEY","value":"sk-ant-..."}'

Or use the Settings panel (gear icon) in the canvas to manage secrets per workspace.

What just happened

You spun up a self-organising engineering team. They're real agents — they can read your codebase, run tests, open PRs to GitHub. Their schedules (security audit, UX audit, template fitness checks) run hourly on their own.

Using the SaaS instead

Don't want to self-host? Use the cloud platform directly:

1. Go to app.moleculesai.app
2. Sign up and create an organization
3. Your tenant is provisioned at <your-org>.moleculesai.app
4. Deploy agents from templates — same experience, zero infrastructure

Next steps

• Customise the Org Template to match your team.
• Add Plugins to give roles new capabilities.
• Wire a Channel so you can talk to PM from Telegram.
• Connect your own agents with External Agents.
• Generate API Tokens for programmatic access.
• Read about the Architecture under the hood.