Integrate your first team

Integrate a team with the project you already use. First map your existing workflow and compare it with a fixed profile. Then run bowerloom up --team <name> --goal <goal> in the project folder. Each step adds only .bowerloom and the skill copies. It shows its exact plan first. It writes after you approve that plan. Your other project files stay as they are.

Keep your project out of iCloud Drive folders. Project commands such as bowerloom up, ls, status, apply, and skills sync refuse a project under ~/Documents or ~/Desktop when Desktop and Documents sync is on, and under the ~/Library cloud folders, with PROJECT_IN_CLOUD_FOLDER. The older forms that take an explicit path do not run this check. This beta reads skills only from public sources. See the beta limits.

Ask your agent

Help me prepare this project for a Bowerloom team with bowerloom up. Use the workflow description we reviewed. Ask me for the team name and the goal first. Run each step without --approve first, and show me the plan and its revision. Wait for my exact approval of each step, then run the same command with that revision. Stop at "prepared, workers held". Do not start workers, do not edit AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md, and do not import live agent configuration.

Agent procedure

Prerequisites

Install the matching CLI version through Install Bowerloom.

Open a terminal in the project folder. The folder must be outside iCloud Drive and other cloud-synced folders.

A folder with no .bowerloom needs --goal. The project name is the folder name unless you pass --name.

Plan the first step

Ask the human for the team name and the goal before the first up. Do not choose them yourself. This example uses the team Studio crew and a goal from the test run for this release.

bowerloom up --team "Studio crew" --goal "Prepare a fictional onboarding kit for an independent design studio."

The first plan is the init step. Read the folder, the team, and the count of setup files. The plan ends with a revision and exit code 3. Nothing is written yet. Install Bowerloom shows the plan that this command printed in the test run for this release.

Wait for exact approval

Wait for the human to approve the plan. Replace REVISION_FROM_THE_PLAN with its complete 64-character revision. Keep every other input identical.

bowerloom up --team "Studio crew" --goal "Prepare a fictional onboarding kit for an independent design studio." --approve REVISION_FROM_THE_PLAN

The command applies the step whose revision matches and prints Applied plan <revision>. If a step is left, it then prints the next plan and exits 3. A changed project gives a different revision, and the old approval refuses with STALE_APPROVAL.

Repeat for each later step. Later steps are team, sync, and apply, and up shows only the steps your project needs. Once the folder holds .bowerloom, up ignores --goal.

Read the result

When no step is left, up prints prepared, workers held, points to .bowerloom/START-HERE.md, and exits 4. No worker started. If an item is held, it prints prepared, N items held and a next command for each item.

bowerloom status
bowerloom ls

When nothing drifted, bowerloom status reports Setup: ready. It also prints Workers: none started (this beta starts none). With --json, it reports runtimeReady and executionAuthorized as false. bowerloom ls lists the teams, skills, and prompts in the project.

Approval of the init step adds 20 setup files and one private receipt. Unrelated project files remain unchanged.

If the command refuses

If the plan changed after you saw it, the refusal is STALE_APPROVAL. Nothing was applied. Run the command again without --approve to see the new plan.

If you declined in a terminal, the refusal is APPROVAL_DECLINED. Nothing changed.

If a refusal names PROJECT_IN_CLOUD_FOLDER, move the project out of the synced folder. See Errors.

If a revision is pending from an earlier setup, preserve its transaction records. Use revision recovery.

Continue with Read and review your setup.