Quickstart
Five minutes from install to seeing Hydrate work.
1. Install
curl -fsSL gethydrate.dev/install | sh2. Start a project
mkdir ~/projects/pulse && cd ~/projects/pulse
claude "Build a static landing page for a habit tracker called Pulse.
Plain HTML/CSS. Hero + three features + footer."Claude builds the page. The Stop hook captures the session on exit.
3. Open a new Claude session
claude "Add a pricing section with three tiers"
Watch the UserPromptSubmit hook fire - Hydrate injects relevant context from session 1
into this new session. You can see the injection live in ~/.hydrate/log/context.jsonl.
4. Verify everything is wired
hydrate doctor
Walks through environment, config, embedding dim, store, projects, and a full
backup/restore round-trip. You want all rows green. Add --report for a
paste-ready diagnostic block if anything's red.
5. Open the dashboard
Hydrate-server picks a local port at startup and writes it to
~/.hydrate/server.port (default 49849). Open the dashboard:
open "http://localhost:$(cat ~/.hydrate/server.port)/dashboard"You'll see:
- Token spend for this project, broken down by input / output / cache-read / cache-creation
- The facts Hydrate extracted from session 1
- A session-by-session timeline
- The Runway KPI - "extra days of coding this week" - calibrated to your Claude plan
Hydrate is working.