***

title: Your first Astropods project
subtitle: Create and run your first agent locally
slug: get-started
-----------------

Go from zero to a running agent in three steps. Have the [CLI installed](/install-cli) and Docker ready. You can also [try a pre-built agent](#try-a-pre-built-agent).

<Steps>
  <Step title="Create an agent">
    Scaffold a new project:
    <CodeBlock language="bash">ast create hello-astro</CodeBlock>
    <small>Use <code>--yes</code> to skip prompts and use defaults (HTTP interface, Anthropic model, no knowledge or tools).</small>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Run locally">
    Start a local dev environment with hot-reload:
    <CodeBlock language="bash">cd hello-astro && ast dev</CodeBlock>
    <small>Edit code and the agent restarts automatically. Run <code>ast configure</code> to set API keys as needed (e.g. <code>ANTHROPIC\_API\_KEY</code>).</small>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Next step">
    When you're ready to publish your agent to the Astropods registry, see <a href="/publish-to-registry">Publish to registry</a>. Pushing requires an account and <code>ast login</code>.
  </Step>
</Steps>

***

## Try a pre-built agent

We have built and shared several agents in the [astropods/agents](https://github.com/astropods/agents) open-source repo. You can try any of them with <code>ast dev</code>. Here's an example:

**GitHub Issue Analyzer** — Ingests GitHub issues from a repo into a Neo4j knowledge graph, enriches them with OpenAI analysis (categories, solutions, workarounds), and answers questions via Cypher queries and comment summarization. Requires `GITHUB_TOKEN` and `OPENAI_API_KEY`.

```bash
git clone git@github.com:astropods/agents.git
cd agents/github-issue-analyzer
ast configure   # set required API keys
ast dev
```

***

## More commands

Run `ast --help` to see all available commands.