Installation

Tide Commander runs as a local server you visit in a browser. There’s nothing to “install” per se — bunx fetches and runs it on demand. This page covers every installation path and the prerequisites for each.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ (or Bun 1.0+)
• At least one supported CLI in your PATH:

Claude Code

Install from claude.ai/code. Authenticate with claude login before first use.

OpenAI Codex

Install the Codex CLI. Requires an OpenAI API key in OPENAI_API_KEY.

OpenCode

Install from github.com/nicholasgriffintn/opencode. Reads .claude/CLAUDE.md natively.

Install options

bunx (recommended)

No installation required — bunx fetches the latest version on first run and caches it:

bunx tide-commander

Open http://localhost:5174 when the server reports it is ready.

npm global

npm i -g tide-commander@latest
tide-commander start

Docker

docker run -p 5174:5174 \
  -v ~/.local/share/tide-commander:/root/.local/share/tide-commander \
  ghcr.io/deivid11/tide-commander:latest

Agent sessions and configuration are persisted in the host-mounted volume.

CLI commands

Once installed globally, you have a full lifecycle CLI:

tide-commander start      # Start in background (default)
tide-commander stop       # Stop the background server
tide-commander status     # Check whether the server is running
tide-commander logs       # Show latest server logs
tide-commander logs --follow   # Stream logs in real time

Common flags for start:

tide-commander --foreground            # Run in the foreground (no daemon)
tide-commander --port 8080             # Custom port (default: 5174)
tide-commander --host 0.0.0.0          # Bind to all interfaces
tide-commander --listen-all --port 8080

HTTPS setup

Use HTTPS on shared networks

If Tide Commander is reachable beyond localhost — on a LAN, VPN, or remote server — enable HTTPS to encrypt traffic and use an auth token.

The fastest path uses mkcert to generate and trust a local certificate automatically:

tide-commander start --install-local-cert --https

With existing cert files:

tide-commander start --https \
  --tls-key ./certs/localhost-key.pem \
  --tls-cert ./certs/localhost.pem

Auth token options:

# Set an explicit token
tide-commander start --https --auth-token <your-token>

# Generate a random token (printed at startup — save it)
tide-commander start --https --generate-auth-token

Where certs are stored

Local certificates are saved to ~/.tide-commander/certs/ when using --install-local-cert. If you set AUTH_TOKEN, it persists across restarts and is required in the X-Auth-Token header for API requests.

Data storage

Tide Commander stores all state in ~/.local/share/tide-commander/:

File	Contents
agents.json	Agent configs, positions, session IDs
areas.json	Group area definitions
buildings.json	Building configs and service definitions
skills.json	Custom skill definitions
custom-agent-classes.json	Custom class definitions
secrets.json	Encrypted credential storage
snapshots/	Saved conversation snapshots

Custom 3D models land in ~/.tide-commander/custom-models/.

Next steps

Your First Agent

Spawn an agent and send your first command →

Providers

Configure Claude, Codex, and OpenCode →