The six things worth installing once.
If you used Claude Desktop or the Codex app to get your site live on the earlier pages, you didn't need any of this. But to unlock the real power — an agent that runs commands, installs packages, and carries a task through to a finished result on its own — a handful of tools need to live on your machine first. Ten minutes, once, then you never think about it again. One script below installs all six at once — or walk through them one at a time to see what each one does.
One script installs
all six at once.
Pick your OS. Each script checks what you already have and only installs what's missing — safe to run even if some of these are already on your machine, and safe to run again any time.
Install my development tools for me: Homebrew, Git, the GitHub CLI, Node.js, VS Code, and both Claude Code and Codex CLI. Run `curl -fsSL https://gitlab.com/eim_opensource/gravity-python/-/raw/master/scripts/install_tools_macos.sh | bash` — it skips anything already installed, so it's safe to run even if I have some of these already. If it asks for my password or anything else needs my input, ask me. Once it finishes, run `gh auth login` and tell me what to do next to finish signing in to the GitHub CLI.
curl -fsSL \ https://gitlab.com/eim_opensource/gravity-python/-/raw/master/scripts/install_tools_macos.sh \ | bash
Install my development tools for me: Git, the GitHub CLI, Node.js, VS Code, and both Claude Code and Codex CLI. Run `curl -fsSL https://gitlab.com/eim_opensource/gravity-python/-/raw/master/scripts/install_tools_linux.sh | bash` — it detects apt, dnf, or pacman automatically and skips anything already installed, so it's safe to run even if I have some of these already. If it asks for my sudo password or anything else needs my input, ask me. Once it finishes, run `gh auth login` and tell me what to do next to finish signing in to the GitHub CLI.
curl -fsSL \ https://gitlab.com/eim_opensource/gravity-python/-/raw/master/scripts/install_tools_linux.sh \ | bash
Install my development tools for me: Git, the GitHub CLI, Node.js, VS Code, and both Claude Code and Codex CLI. In PowerShell, run `iwr https://gitlab.com/eim_opensource/gravity-python/-/raw/master/scripts/install_tools_windows.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | iex` — it uses winget and skips anything already installed, so it's safe to run even if I have some of these already. If winget isn't installed yet, tell me to get "App Installer" from the Microsoft Store first, then try again. Once it finishes, close and reopen the terminal, run `gh auth login`, and tell me what to do next to finish signing in to the GitHub CLI.
iwr https://gitlab.com/eim_opensource/gravity-python/-/raw/master/scripts/install_tools_windows.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | iex
Homebrew — the Mac package installer
Everything else on this page installs through this one command. On a Mac, it's the very first thing to run.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
A text editor
Somewhere to actually look at the files your AI agent is changing. Visual Studio Code is the easiest default — it doesn't have to be VS Code.
brew install --cask visual-studio-code
Node.js — npm and npx come free
A lot of what you'll install next, including Claude Code and Codex, is distributed through npm, Node's package manager. One install gets you Node, npm, and npx together.
brew install node
node --versionNode itselfnpm --versionNode's package managernpx --versionruns a package without installing it firstGit
Version control — the thing that saves your history so you can undo a bad change or see exactly what an AI agent did. The next lesson covers it in full; this is just getting it installed.
brew install git
The GitHub CLI — gh
Create and push to a GitHub repository from the terminal, no browser required. An AI agent can use it directly too — it's what powers make push-repo on a Gravity site.
brew install gh gh auth login
Your AI coding agent
a little more advanced worth doing now, not later. This is the terminal version of the same agent from the Get Started page — instead of a desktop app, it lives right in your terminal, can run commands on its own, and is the tool of choice for serious, multi-step building.
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code claude
npm install -g @openai/codex codex
One command, six checks.
Paste this in any time — it just prints each tool's version, or nothing if it's missing.
brew --version; code --version; node --version; npm --version; git --version; gh --version; claude --version || codex --version