THE WIZARD PATH

You have nothing but an idea. Let's build everything.

You've never seen the forge before. That's perfectly alright. Every great adventure starts with a single step — and Gandalf will be right beside you for this one.

Bilbo

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Node.js 20+ — the runtime that powers the forge. Download it here (LTS recommended). Verify with node --version.

Claude Code — Anthropic's coding CLI. This is the engine that runs every agent, every command, every build phase. Install with: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash then authenticate with your Anthropic API key.

Git — for version control. Download from git-scm.com.

That's it. No IDE plugins, no cloud accounts, no credit cards. Just a terminal, the tools above, and an idea.

START THE WIZARD

One command. Gandalf takes it from here.

$ npx thevoidforge init my-project

This launches the standalone wizard — a browser UI at http://localhost:3141/ where Gandalf walks you through everything: project name, what you're building, tech stack preferences, deploy target. Drag and drop a PRD or let the wizard generate one through an interactive conversation. No blank-page problem. No YAML by hand.

REMOTE & LAN ACCESS

The wizard server binds to localhost by default. If you're installing on a remote server (VPS, EC2, DigitalOcean, home server), you'll see Server running at http://localhost:3141/ with no way to reach it from your browser. Here are three ways to connect:

OPTION 1: SSH TUNNEL (SIMPLEST)

No config changes. The wizard stays bound to localhost. Encrypted. No firewall changes needed.

# From your local machine:
ssh -L 3141:localhost:3141 user@your-server

Then open http://localhost:3141/ in your local browser. The SSH tunnel forwards the connection to the remote server.

OPTION 2: LAN MODE (PRIVATE NETWORKS)

For ZeroTier, Tailscale, or home LAN. Binds to 0.0.0.0 so any machine on your private network can reach it. Dashboard is read-only — no vault, deploy, or terminal access. No password required.

voidforge init --lan

Access via http://<server-private-ip>:3141/

OPTION 3: REMOTE MODE (FULL ACCESS)

Full access over the internet — vault, deploy, terminal. Requires vault password + TOTP 2FA. Set up TOTP during /cultivation install or on first remote login. Use behind a reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx) with HTTPS.

voidforge init --remote

Security notes

Default (no flag) — binds to 127.0.0.1 only. Cannot be reached from the network.
--lan — restricts endpoints to dashboard-only and only accepts private IP origins.
--remote — enables all endpoints but enforces session auth + TOTP for write operations.
Port 3141 must be open in your firewall/security group for Options 2 and 3.

The wizard handles orientation. Once your PRD is generated, I take over — reading the frontmatter, extracting the architecture, assigning agents to phases. You don't need to understand the 13 phases. They understand you.

Picard

THE PROJECT DASHBOARD

Each project gets its own dashboard with 5 tabs: Overview, Tower (in-browser Claude Code), Danger Room (build monitoring), War Room (growth campaigns), and Deploy. Navigate from the Lobby by clicking a project card. “Resume last project” remembers where you left off.

Everything is project-scoped — WebSocket events, financial data, daemon state, and agent activity are isolated per project. No cross-project data leakage.

BUILD AND DEPLOY

After the wizard finishes, your PRD is ready. Now launch Claude Code — the AI coding CLI that runs every VoidForge agent:

# In your terminal:

claude

This opens the Claude Code CLI in your project directory. Claude reads the CLAUDE.md methodology file automatically. Now type the build command at the Claude Code prompt:

# Inside Claude Code:

/build

Picard reads your PRD, assigns agents, and the 13-phase protocol executes end to end. When the build completes, deploy by typing at the Claude Code prompt:

# Inside Claude Code:

/deploy

Kusanagi handles deployment — VPS, Vercel, Railway, Cloudflare, Docker, or Static. The deploy target was set during the wizard. Infrastructure is not your problem anymore. Kusanagi auto-detects, checks, deploys, and verifies health.

How slash commands work: Every VoidForge command starting with / is a slash command inside Claude Code. You type them at the Claude Code prompt, not your system terminal. Launch Claude Code with claude in your terminal first, then type /build, /deploy, /campaign, /gauntlet, etc.

Name your target. I handle the rest — DNS, SSL, monitoring, backups. You handle the launch party.

Kusanagi

WHAT'S NEXT

Your project is built and deployed. Now stress-test it before real users arrive. Run the Gauntlet — 30+ agents review every domain before you ship.

Once you're live, the growth engine handles SEO, ads, social, and outreach — so your launch doesn't end on day one.