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title: Welcome to Astro AI
subtitle: Deploy and run AI agents with agent-native infrastructure
slug: welcome
layout: overview
hide-toc: true
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          Get started
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        <h1>
          Welcome to Astro AI
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          Astro AI is a platform for deploying and running AI agents. It provides agent-native infrastructure including models, knowledge bases, tool integrations, and observability. Agents are defined with a declarative spec, built and pushed with the CLI, and deployed through the API or dashboard.
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            Quickstart
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          <a class="button alt" href="https://astropods.ai/settings">
            Get API key
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          <img src="https://files.buildwithfern.com/astro-061127.docs.buildwithfern.com/73a8a92ddaf5e548664e28240663de1c5a22333ed8cef0118c04fa9fd19da818/docs/assets/hero.svg" alt="Astro AI Hero" class="hero-image" noZoom />
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## What you can do

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Install the CLI" icon="duotone download" href="/install-cli">
    Download and install the `ast` CLI for your platform
  </Card>

  <Card title="Your first project" icon="duotone rocket" href="/get-started">
    Install the CLI, create an agent, and run locally in three steps
  </Card>

  <Card title="Make your agent discoverable" icon="duotone id-card" href="/agent-card">
    Describe your agent with an AGENT.md file for discovery and display
  </Card>

  <Card title="Publish to registry" icon="duotone cloud-arrow-up" href="/publish-to-registry">
    Log in and push your agent to the Astro AI registry (requires account)
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  <Card title="Authentication" icon="duotone key" href="/authentication">
    Log in with `ast login` and manage credentials
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## Concepts

* **Astropods Spec** — Declarative YAML format (<code>astropods.yml</code>) that describes an agent's topology: container, models, knowledge stores, tools, and ingestion. See [Astropods Spec](/astropods-package-spec).
* **Agent Card** — A Markdown file with YAML frontmatter (<code>AGENT.md</code>) that describes what an agent does, who built it, and what it connects to. See [Make your agent discoverable](/agent-card).
* **Agent** — A deployable unit defined by an <code>astropods.yml</code> spec: container image, models, knowledge stores, tools, and integrations.
* **Registry** — Astro AI registry where agent images and spec artifacts are published.

## Next steps

<Steps>
  <Step title="Install the CLI">
    Run <code>curl -fsSL [https://astropods.ai/install](https://astropods.ai/install) | sh</code> or see [Install the CLI](/install-cli).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create and run an agent">
    Follow [Your first project](/get-started): <code>ast create hello-astro</code>, then <code>cd hello-astro && ast dev</code>.
  </Step>
</Steps>