Installation

Prerequisites

Install Nix if you don’t have it:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install

Binary Cache (recommended)

Adding the GHOST binary cache avoids a ~15 minute compile from source. (This step won’t be needed once GHOST lands in nixpkgs.)

If you installed Nix with the Determinate Systems installer (recommended), add to /etc/nix/nix.custom.conf:

Linux

echo 'extra-substituters = https://ghost-ai.cachix.org' | sudo tee -a /etc/nix/nix.custom.conf
echo 'extra-trusted-public-keys = ghost-ai.cachix.org-1:c0BYnkFKE8rYzkusZD5+l5D5Vcl8WRQMXV1zVWjxCBI=' | sudo tee -a /etc/nix/nix.custom.conf
sudo systemctl restart nix-daemon

macOS

echo 'extra-substituters = https://ghost-ai.cachix.org' | sudo tee -a /etc/nix/nix.custom.conf
echo 'extra-trusted-public-keys = ghost-ai.cachix.org-1:c0BYnkFKE8rYzkusZD5+l5D5Vcl8WRQMXV1zVWjxCBI=' | sudo tee -a /etc/nix/nix.custom.conf
sudo pkill nix-daemon

Standard Nix (non-Determinate)

If you installed Nix via the official installer, use /etc/nix/nix.conf instead of nix.custom.conf.

NixOS

Add the cache to your system configuration:

configuration.nix

nix.settings = {
  extra-substituters = [ "https://ghost-ai.cachix.org" ];
  extra-trusted-public-keys = [
    "ghost-ai.cachix.org-1:c0BYnkFKE8rYzkusZD5+l5D5Vcl8WRQMXV1zVWjxCBI="
  ];
};

Install and Run

1. Install GHOST

   nix profile add github:mrtolkien/GHOST/latest

2. Run the onboarding wizard

   ghost init

   The wizard configures your LLM provider, Discord bot, and all services. See Onboarding for details.

3. Verify your setup

   ghost status

   Confirms your config is valid, the daemon is running, and all services are reachable.

Install Channels

Command	What you get
nix profile add github:mrtolkien/GHOST/latest	Latest release (recommended)
nix profile add github:mrtolkien/GHOST/main	Bleeding edge (latest commit)
nix profile add github:mrtolkien/GHOST/v0.5.0	Pinned version

Updating

ghost update

From Source

For development or manual setups, clone and build with Nix:

git clone https://github.com/mrtolkien/ghost.git
cd ghost
nix build
./result/bin/ghost version

Or install directly into your profile from a local checkout:

nix profile install .