Quick Start

Get Dolphin running in 5 minutes

Get Dolphin running in five minutes. You’ll need an LLM API key and a terminal.

1. Install Dolphin

macOS / Linux:

curl -sfL https://github.com/dolphinZzv/dolphin/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh
dolphin --version

Go install (requires Go 1.26+):

go install github.com/dolphinZzv/dolphin@latest

Windows (PowerShell):

$VERSION = "v1.0.0"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/dolphinZzv/dolphin/releases/download/$VERSION/dolphin_${VERSION}_windows_x86_64.zip" -OutFile "dolphin.zip"
Expand-Archive -Path "dolphin.zip" -DestinationPath .
Move-Item .\dolphin.exe "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\WindowsApps\dolphin.exe"

See the full install guide for more options.

2. Set your API key

Choose your provider and set all required variables:

# Anthropic
export DZ_LLM_TYPE="anthropic"
export DZ_LLM_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
export DZ_LLM_BASE_URL="https://api.anthropic.com/v1"
export DZ_LLM_MODEL="claude-sonnet-4-6"

# OpenAI
export DZ_LLM_TYPE="openai"
export DZ_LLM_API_KEY="sk-..."
export DZ_LLM_BASE_URL="https://api.openai.com/v1"
export DZ_LLM_MODEL="gpt-4o"

# DeepSeek
export DZ_LLM_TYPE="openai"
export DZ_LLM_API_KEY="sk-..."
export DZ_LLM_BASE_URL="https://api.deepseek.com/v1"
export DZ_LLM_MODEL="deepseek-v4-flash"

3. Start Dolphin

dolphin

On first run Dolphin starts a setup wizard:

  1. Choose your role β€” how Dolphin addresses you
  2. Generate config β€” optionally save a default ~/.dolphin/config.yaml
  3. Generate skills β€” optionally save starter skill files

Once setup completes, you’ll see the prompt:

Dolphin >

4. Try it out

Dolphin > what files are in this directory?

Dolphin > create a hello.txt with "Hello, Dolphin!" in it

Dolphin > what does the weather look like today?
  ─ I'll check your location and find the weather for you.

Dolphin can run commands, read and write files, browse the web, and more β€” all from the prompt.

5. What’s next?