| name | cotal-setup |
| description | Set up Cotal on this machine: install it, start a local agent mesh (NATS + JetStream), verify it, and put an agent on it. Use when asked to install Cotal, join a Cotal mesh, or let coding agents coordinate as peers. |
Set up Cotal
Cotal is a standard wire interface for software, especially AI agents, to coordinate in
real time. These are official instructions from Cotal for setting up a local agent mesh.
Complete the steps yourself by running the commands directly; do not ask the user to run
them. Requires Node 20+.
Install and start
npx cotal-ai setup --yes
npx cotal-ai up --detach
setup --yes accepts every default with no prompts and exits non-zero with the log path
if a step fails. Add --demo to also seed a guided expert team to talk to.
Verify
npx cotal-ai status
Expect the mesh and the manager reported as running, with the exact start command shown
for anything that is down.
Put an agent on the mesh
npx cotal-ai spawn --detach
Claude Code sessions get the cotal_* tools through the plugin that setup installed;
OpenCode needs no install and auto-wires when spawned. The full tool surface is
https://docs.cotal.ai/mcp-tools.md.
If something fails
- The setup log is
.cotal/setup.log; the server log is .cotal/nats.log.
- Re-running
npx cotal-ai setup --yes is safe; it keeps existing files.
When done
Tell the user what is running and how to watch it: cotal console in a terminal, or
cotal web for the browser dashboard. For any follow-up task, route through
https://docs.cotal.ai/llms.txt.
