How do I start if I have an AI assistant?

Goal: an empty folder becomes a running fullstack app without you typing a build command. Two commands go in; the assistant does the rest and hands you the sign-in.

The front door: two commands

Open an empty folder in whatever coding assistant you use — Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot, aider — and ask it to run:

dart pub global activate dartway_cli
dartway quickstart

quickstart prints the setup brief to stdout: check the machine, create the project, bring it up in an order that is explained step by step, verify the server is actually answering, hand over the sign-in, and what the project expects next. That text lands in the assistant's context, and it proceeds on its own. Then say what you want in your own words — "set up a DartWay project called my_app and bring it up".

Why a printed text and not a plugin. An extension exists in one vendor's format, and the front door of an open framework should not. The brief is markdown on stdout, so every assistant reads the same instruction, and there is no second, friendlier version of it to drift from the real one. It is maintained next to the CLI's code (packages/dartway_cli/lib/src/quickstart_brief.dart), and it is equally readable by you — the quick start is the same path, written for a person.

What the machine has to have

The brief starts with dartway doctor, which reports each of these and prints the fix for whatever is missing:

• Dart >=3.11 and Flutter >=3.44.
• git, with an identity. create commits the project it makes; without user.name and user.email that commit is the step that does not happen.
• A pub host that answers. Every step begins with pub get, and pub sets no deadline on a connection that opens and then goes quiet. Where the route to pub.dev is filtered you get no error, just a resolve step that hangs until the session is killed — which is why the brief tells the assistant to stop and ask you rather than push past this one.
• Docker, running. Postgres and the object storage come from it, for development and for tests, and there is no second path. This is the one an assistant cannot solve for you: Docker Desktop does not install unattended.
• Globally activated executables on PATH. If they are not, every command still works as dart pub global run dartway_cli:dartway <command>.

What the assistant will ask you

Which phone number or e-mail should be the administrator. It goes into DW_ADMIN_IDENTIFIER, and the brief tells the assistant to ask rather than choose: whoever can receive the one-time code on that identifier becomes the admin. An invented value is an admin nobody can sign in as — or someone else can.

It should also ask before docker compose down -v. That recreates a drifted local database and destroys its data; a fair fix, and your call.

How you know it worked

The brief tells the assistant to report facts, and nothing else counts:

• the server started, which means it applied its migrations — it exits naming the migration otherwise;
• 200 from http://localhost:8080/health;
• the identifier to sign in with, and the real one-time code read from the server log. Nothing goes over SMS or e-mail in development; the code is printed as Sign-in code for <identifier>: …. "Enter anything" is wrong — the code is checked. The seeded accounts sign in with 111111.

"It should be running" is not a fact. Ask for the status code.

A good first thing to try: sign in as the administrator in two browser windows, change a member's role or an app setting in the admin panel, and watch the other window follow without a reload.

The toolkit the project carries

dartway create installs the toolkit for Codex and Claude by default; dartway setup-ai --agent codex|claude|both installs the selected integrations into an existing project without changing its framework dependencies. Both agents read .agents/DARTWAY.md; their skills are generated from one source. Root project instructions and custom skills survive updates. The commit and checkup procedures are skills, with /commit and /dartway-checkup wrappers for Claude. See The agent toolkit for managed files and agent-specific settings. Commit the toolkit and root connection blocks so a clone comes with the same methodology.

Keeping it current: dartway update

A toolkit is a committed artifact, and a month-old one looks exactly like a fresh one. dartway update --plan reports an exact target, checks plugin resolution and lists dependency gaps and unconfirmed migration notes without project edits. update --target <sha> installs that target. After project verification, record each note as applied or not applicable; locks and toolkit installation never complete it. Missing records mean an unknown migration baseline. Same page, "Keeping it current".

It edits no code of the project, deliberately. Raising a caret is one line; answering a changed API is not, and a command that half-did it would leave a tree nobody can tell from a finished one. The dartway-update skill is what carries the list out.

When it goes sideways

• The assistant reports success without a status code. Ask for the output of the health check.
• It suggests loosening an access rule to fix an empty list. An empty answer is usually a correct rule. Access is closed until opened, deliberately.
• pub get hangs. The pub host is not answering — dartway doctor says so; the fix is the network, not a retry.
• dartway: command not found right after a successful install: the pub cache is not on PATH. Use dart pub global run dartway_cli:dartway <command>, or fix PATH as doctor prints.
• No agent at hand? Every command is in the created project's README.md, and the whole path is the quick start.

Where to go next

• Quick start — the same path by hand, with the reason for each step.
• What DartWay is — the ideas behind the contract, and the honest limits.
• Project layout — the three packages and every folder in them.
• The agent toolkit — what ships for Codex and Claude, and how to customize it without losing the change on the next update.
• The CLI — quickstart, doctor, create, setup-ai, update and the rest.