First configuration

Automatic first configuration

In an interactive terminal, the simplest first step is:

palabre

If no configuration exists yet, Palabre creates the global configuration at:

~/.palabre/palabre.config.json

It detects locally available tools, chooses useful defaults when possible, then opens the TUI home screen.

Explicit initialization

You can still initialize Palabre explicitly:

palabre init

This creates the same global configuration:

~/.palabre/palabre.config.json

It also detects locally available tools: Codex, Claude, Antigravity, OpenCode, Mistral Vibe, and Ollama. After creation, Palabre shows the active language and the quick command to switch to the other language.

For a configuration specific to the current project:

palabre init --local

Choose the language

By default, Palabre uses French. To switch the interface and the prompts sent to agents to English:

palabre config --language en

To switch back to French:

palabre config --language fr

You can also choose the language directly during initialization:

palabre init --language en

Verify the installation

palabre doctor

doctor does not launch any AI agent. It checks the configuration, available commands, Ollama, and declared local models.

View declared agents

palabre agents

or:

palabre -a

This command displays the agents present in your configuration and indicates whether they are detected on your machine.

Choose default agents

The simplest way is to use the assistant:

palabre config

You can also set default agents directly:

palabre config --set-defaults codex claude --summary-agent claude -t 4

Here:

• codex responds first;
• claude responds second;
• claude produces the final summary;
• -t 4 requests four turns in total.

Add agents detected later

If you install Antigravity, OpenCode, Mistral Vibe, or Ollama after creating the configuration:

palabre config --sync-agents

This command adds missing detected known agents and refreshes known command names without overwriting your custom agents or existing defaults. The TUI home screen performs the same conservative synchronization automatically when it starts.

Next step

You can now start your first session.