Install konareef

konareef is a single Go binary. Today you build it from source; package installers are on the roadmap. Authoring and validating pods works fully offline — you only need a reef-core deployment once you want to publish or run a pod.

What needs what

Author + validate (this page and the Quickstart): local only, no account, no network. Publish, install, verify, spawn: talk to a reef-core deployment and, for mutating actions, a session token.

Prerequisites

Go 1.25 or newer — go version to check. Install from go.dev/dl.
git — to clone the source.
A C toolchain is not required; konareef is pure Go.

Build from source

Clone the repository and build the binary:

git clone https://github.com/digitsu/konareef.git
cd konareef
go build -o konareef .

Put the resulting konareef binary somewhere on your PATH (for example /usr/local/bin or ~/go/bin):

install -m 0755 konareef ~/go/bin/konareef   # or: sudo mv konareef /usr/local/bin/

Coming soon

One-line installs — brew install konareef and go install github.com/digitsu/konareef@latest — are planned. Until then, build from source as above.

Verify the install

There is no konareef --version flag. The most useful check is the one you will run constantly anyway: scaffold a throwaway pod and validate it. If both succeed, your toolchain works.

konareef pod init install-check
konareef pod validate ./install-check/pod.toml

Expected output:

created pod "install-check" (3 files)
   install-check/pod.toml
   install-check/prompts/system.md
   install-check/README.md
...
./install-check/pod.toml: valid

Then clean up:

rm -rf install-check

First run touches your keychain

konareef pod init generates a per-lineage salt and stores it via your OS keychain (you may see saltstore: using backend keychain). For privacy-preserving (Type-D) pods the salt is irrecoverable if lost — back it up with konareef salt export. The Hello World pod in the Quickstart does not need this.

About provider keys

You do not configure an LLM provider key locally. A pod names the model it wants (for example provider = "anthropic"), and secrets are resolved from the reef-core vault at spawn time — never embedded in the pod or your shell config. For mutating CLI actions against reef-core (publish, smoke), pass a session token via --token or the KONAREEF_TOKEN environment variable.

Common install problems

Symptom	Fix
`command not found: konareef`	The binary is not on your `PATH`. Confirm where you moved it and that the directory is on `PATH` (restart your shell after editing your profile).
`go: ... requires go >= 1.25`	Your Go is too old. Upgrade from go.dev/dl and re-run `go build`.
Keychain prompt on `pod init`	Expected — the salt store uses your OS keychain. Allow access.