Install konareef

konareef is a single Go binary. Get a prebuilt release, run go install, or build from source. A package-manager installer (Homebrew) is still on the roadmap. Authoring and validating pods works fully offline. You only need a reef-core deployment to publish or run a pod.

What needs what

Author + validate (this page and the Quickstart): local only, no account, no network. Publish, install, verify, spawn: talk to a reef-core deployment and, for mutating actions, a session token.

Prerequisites

Skip this if you use a prebuilt binary below. It is a standalone executable with no dependencies. go install and building from source need:

Go 1.25 or newer — go version to check. Install from go.dev/dl.
git — to clone the source (build-from-source only).
A C toolchain is not required. konareef is pure Go.

Prebuilt binaries (recommended)

No Go toolchain required. Download the archive for your platform from the latest release, extract, and put konareef on your PATH:

tar -xzf konareef_*_$(uname -s | tr A-Z a-z)_*.tar.gz
install -m 0755 konareef ~/go/bin/konareef   # or: sudo mv konareef /usr/local/bin/
konareef --version

Releases ship darwin and linux archives (amd64/arm64) plus a checksums.txt — verify with sha256sum -c checksums.txt.

go install

With Go 1.25+ on your PATH:

go install github.com/digitsu/konareef@latest
konareef --version

Build from source

Clone the repository and build the binary:

git clone https://github.com/digitsu/konareef.git
cd konareef
go build -o konareef .

Put the resulting konareef binary somewhere on your PATH (for example /usr/local/bin or ~/go/bin):

install -m 0755 konareef ~/go/bin/konareef   # or: sudo mv konareef /usr/local/bin/

Coming soon

A Homebrew one-liner — brew install konareef — is planned. Until then, use a prebuilt binary, go install, or build from source as above.

Verify the install

Confirm the binary runs and reports its version:

konareef --version

Then run the check you will use often. Scaffold a throwaway pod and validate it. If both succeed, your toolchain works:

konareef pod init install-check
konareef pod validate ./install-check/pod.toml

Expected output:

created pod "install-check" (3 files)
   install-check/pod.toml
   install-check/prompts/system.md
   install-check/README.md
...
./install-check/pod.toml: valid

Then clean up:

rm -rf install-check

First run touches your keychain

konareef pod init generates a per-lineage salt for every pod, including the Hello World pod in the Quickstart. It stores the salt via your OS keychain (you may see saltstore: using backend keychain). For privacy-preserving (Type-D) pods, you cannot recover the salt if you lose it. Back it up with konareef salt export.

No OS keychain? WSL, headless Linux and containers usually run no Secret Service keyring. konareef does not store salts in cleartext unless you ask, so it stops with ERR_SALT_STORAGE_UNAVAILABLE. Set a passphrase and it works everywhere:

export KONAREEF_SALT_PASSPHRASE='choose-a-passphrase'
export KONAREEF_DISABLE_KEYCHAIN_BACKEND=1   # optional: skip the keyring probe
konareef pod init hello-world

Keep that passphrase. It encrypts your salt file.

About provider keys

You do not configure an LLM provider key locally. A pod names the model it wants (for example provider = "anthropic"). reef-core resolves secrets from the reef-core vault at spawn time. konareef never embeds them in the pod or your shell config. For mutating CLI actions against reef-core (publish, smoke), pass a session token via --token or the KONAREEF_TOKEN environment variable.

Common install problems

Symptom	Fix
`command not found: konareef`	The binary is not on your `PATH`. Confirm where you moved it and that the directory is on `PATH` (restart your shell after editing your profile).
`go: ... requires go >= 1.25`	Your Go is too old. Upgrade from go.dev/dl and re-run `go build`.
Keychain prompt on `pod init`	This is expected. The salt store uses your OS keychain. Allow access.