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Install Hydrate

Hydrate runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows. ~30 seconds end-to-end on every platform.

In open beta. Install live, lock $5/mo Pro forever. During beta, free licences are issued automatically and unlock every Pro feature. The $5/mo rate locks for life if you register during beta. Pro features stay free for everyone through beta and for 30 days after v1 launches. Full pricing →

1. Get the binary

macOS / Linux (Homebrew)

brew install getHydrate/hydrate/hydrate

macOS / Linux (curl one-liner)

curl -fsSL gethydrate.dev/install | sh

Windows (MSI)

Download Hydrate.msi (~50 MB, always the latest release) and double-click to install. Then open a new PowerShell window for step 2. Code signing for Windows Authenticode is on the roadmap: expect a SmartScreen warning on first run until then.

For verify-before-install (SHA-256 checks, ARM64 / Intel Mac tarball variants, silent MSI for CI), see the full install page.

2. Run hydrate setup

hydrate setup

One command, end-to-end: mints your user id, wires hooks for every coding-agent runtime detected on this machine (Claude Code, Codex, Mistral Vibe), and offers to install the local semantic embedder (~115 MB).

3. Verify (optional)

hydrate doctor

Prints Ready. on a healthy install. If it lists red rows, run hydrate doctor --fix to apply obvious-recovery actions.

Want every optional knob? hydrate setup --advanced walks the full wizard (VS Code extension, beta lock-in, BYOK keys, enterprise registration).

4. Optional: lock $5/mo Pro forever during beta

hydrate register --edition=pro [email protected]

Pro registration is instant. hydrate register calls our licensing service, receives an Ed25519-signed key, and activates it locally in one CLI call. No email confirmation, no admin approval.

Next, try the builders. Once hydrate doctor is green, the fastest way to make Hydrate productive on a real project is the builders: one-line prompts that generate Claude Code skills, Hydrate hooks, and phased implementation plans, all wired into your local store. See /docs/builders.

What you need - and what gets better when you add more

Hydrate has two places where external services can make the product better: fact extraction (turning a session transcript into atomic architectural facts) and semantic retrieval (finding relevant facts to inject into the next session). Both have sensible defaults. Adding keys upgrades quality; you are never required to add any.

Quality tiers at a glance

Tier What you set up Extraction Retrieval Cost
0 - Minimal HYDRATE_LLM_PROVIDER=none Heuristic (pure Go, rule-based) FTS5 keyword match $0
1 - Default (what you get by just installing) Nothing extra. claude is on PATH because you use Claude Code. Claude Code subprocess (Haiku 4.5 via claude --print) FTS5 keyword match ~$0.005-$0.02 per captured session, drawn from your existing Claude Code subscription/key
2 - Semantic retrieval Run Ollama locally with an embedding model: ollama pull nomic-embed-text, then export HYDRATE_EMBED_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:11434/v1 and HYDRATE_EMBED_MODEL=nomic-embed-text Claude Code subprocess (same as Tier 1) Local embeddings (cosine similarity on nomic-embed-text) + FTS5 $0 network spend (Ollama runs on your machine). One-time ~270 MB model download.
3 - Cloud max-quality (what the published /benchmarks used) export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... (auto-detects OpenAI for both extraction and embeddings) OpenAI gpt-4o-mini OpenAI text-embedding-3-small (1536 dim) + FTS5 ~$0.0001 per fact embedded + ~$0.01-$0.05 per session extracted. PAYG on OpenAI.

Variants: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY routes extraction straight through Anthropic's API instead of via the claude subprocess (slightly faster, same quality, pay-per-token). VOYAGE_API_KEY picks Voyage's code-specialised embedding model instead of OpenAI's. Any mix is valid - Hydrate resolves each provider independently.

Where to put the keys: don't paste them into .zshrc. Run hydrate login openai (or anthropic / voyage) - the CLI stores secrets in your macOS Keychain (or a 0600 file on Linux), same pattern as gh auth login / stripe login. Full story: /docs/byok.

How to choose

  • Just installed? You're on Tier 1. No setup needed. Works for ~80% of the value.
  • Want semantic ("fuzzy") fact retrieval? Add Ollama (Tier 2). Best privacy/cost balance.
  • Want the same configuration we used for the published benchmarks? Set OPENAI_API_KEY (Tier 3). Costs pennies-per-session total.
  • Air-gapped / no network at all? Tier 0 - HYDRATE_LLM_PROVIDER=none. Heuristic + FTS5. Still useful; canon injection still works.