Getting started

1. Install the .NET SDK

2. Install the bit CLI

Or run it once without installing it: dnx Bit.Cli --prerelease -- new

The bit CLI installs tools and changes your machine, so it's made to be checked, not just trusted:

• Open source. All of it is on GitHub under the MIT license.
• Built by GitHub Actions, never on someone's laptop. bit about shows the commit and the run that built your copy.
• Signed. bit.dll carries bit foundation's code signature from Azure Artifact Signing, and on Windows bit about shows who signed it once Windows has checked the signature.
• Attested. GitHub keeps a signed record of the run that built each package and the bit.dll inside it, along with a list of every component they contain. bit about asks GitHub whether your exact file has one, and prints the gh attestation verify command that checks it yourself.
• Published without a stored key. Releases reach nuget.org through trusted publishing: each one gets a key that lasts an hour and works only for this repository's release workflow, so there's no long-lived key to steal. nuget.org then signs every package it serves.
• Nothing hidden. Every install or change is listed before it runs, each step prints the command it uses, and each run's log stays in ~/.bitplatform/logs. Error reports never include project names, paths, file contents or keys, and bit telemetry off stops them.

3. Create your project

Pick your project's options on the Create project page, or describe your app to its assistant, then copy the command it builds and run it, e.g.:
The bit new command checks this machine and offers to install what's missing: Node.js, Git, Docker, the Aspire CLI, VS Code and more. What the project needs is checked already; the rest is up to you, and anything that's already there isn't shown at all. When an install needs it, Windows asks once for administrator permission, and on macOS and Linux sudo asks once for your password.

It also warns, only when it's sure, if virtualization is turned off in the BIOS while Docker Desktop or the Android emulator needs it, if the machine has less than 24 GB of memory, or if the project's drive is a hard disk rather than an SSD.

Then it creates the project with a certificate of its own, initializes git with develop and main, installs the build tools the apps need, restores the packages, builds, installs the Chromium the UI tests run in, formats the code, adds the initial EF Core migration, trusts the folder for VS Code and the AI coding tools, installs the VS Code extensions the project recommends, and opens it in VS Code. Then use any AI assistant you like: the project comes fully configured for Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Gemini CLI and Cursor. A step that fails doesn't stop the rest, and the summary shows how to finish it.

Pick the options on the Create project page to get the command for your project, or run bit new --help.

Android, iOS, macOS and Windows apps

The web app is always set up. Picking any native app on the Create project page builds the whole solution, which needs several GB of extra build tools and makes the first run much longer. You can add them any time later from the project folder: iOS and macOS apps need a Mac with Xcode, and the Windows app needs Windows.

Check a machine

After cloning a project, or on a new machine, run this in the project folder to see what's missing, along with the machine's memory, virtualization and drive, and add --fix to install it: