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base is one binary. Installing it takes a single command, and that command is the only step that touches anything outside the directory you run it in, so this page says exactly what it touches.

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Get the binary

Build it from source on any platform, or take the prebuilt archive on Windows.
The Windows build script imports the MSVC developer environment and resolves LLVM and libclang, which bindgen needs for the vendored RocksDB. If you would rather not set up a toolchain, take the prebuilt archive.

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What the installer changes

base install runs eight steps, in this order. Nothing else on your machine is modified. Verified from source at 0ace1ba, the commit the shipped 0.15.2 binary was built from.

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Which agents it wires

Today the installer wires one host: it edits ~/.claude/settings.json, appends to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md, and installs the bundled skill into ~/.claude/skills/. Codex and Antigravity are not wired by the installer, and there is no flag that wires them. Connecting another host is something you would do by hand. Everything base holds is host-independent. The graph, your rules, your projects and your code maps are files on your machine, and any agent that can read them can use them. What the installer automates is the delivery for one host.

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The flags

--skip-hooks leaves you with base as an ordinary command-line tool and nothing running automatically. That is a reasonable way to start if you would rather try the commands before anything begins appearing in your sessions. Run base install again without the flag when you want the hooks.

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The starter star commands

A fresh install ships zero star commands, which leaves you with the machinery and nothing to type. The installer offers a starter pack (*handoff, *fork, *base and *end) so there is something to use on day one. Accepting is the easier path; you can remove any of them later with base commands remove.

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Check it worked

base doctor reads the graph across both tiers and exits nonzero if anything is wrong. On a fresh install it has almost nothing to check, which is the answer you want. Then open an agent session in a scaffolded workspace and send a prompt matching a domain keyword. If a rule comes back without you asking for it, the hooks are wired. If nothing arrives, base context "<your prompt>" will tell you whether anything should have.

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Keeping it current

base update pulls the latest release from public GitHub releases and swaps the binary. base update also refreshes the bundled base-help skill from the release it installed. That step is best effort: offline, or before the release’s files are published, the binary still updates and base doctor reports the skill as behind. base install refreshes it too. base updates itself in the background, except while developer mode is on. The 0.7.0 to 0.15.2 installers turned developer mode on, so a 0.15 install needs one base update to reach 0.16.0; after that, updates arrive on their own. See Updating base.

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Removing it

Plain base uninstall removes the hooks from settings.json, strips the base section out of CLAUDE.md, removes the binary from ~/.local/bin/, and removes the bundled skill. Your own customised copies of a skill, anything saved as <skill>.bak-*, are left alone deliberately. It leaves ~/.base-gbl/ in place, so everything base has learned survives, and reinstalling later picks up where you left off.
--purge deletes ~/.base-gbl/ as well: the global graph, your star commands, your configuration and your stored secrets. There is no preview, no confirmation and no backup. It is the only command in base with that combination.

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Next

Getting started

Scaffold a workspace, teach base one rule, and watch it arrive on its own.

Coach mode

base ships a skill that teaches your agent how base works. Ask it instead of reading.