Installation

This guide will help you install Colony on your system.

Prerequisites

Required

  • Rust (1.70+): Install from rustup.rs
  • tmux (2.0+): Terminal multiplexer for agent isolation
  • Git: For state management
  • Claude Code: The AI coding assistant that agents run on

Optional

  • MCP Servers: For extended functionality

Installing Colony

The easiest way to install Colony is via Cargo from crates.io:

cargo install cc-colony

The colony binary will be installed to ~/.cargo/bin and available in your PATH.

Building from Source

Alternatively, you can clone and build from source:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/mcfearsome/cc-colony.git
cd cc-colony

# Install to ~/.cargo/bin
cargo install --path .

Installing Claude Code

Colony requires Claude Code to run agents. Install it using npm:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Or visit the Claude Code documentation for alternative installation methods.

Installing tmux

macOS

brew install tmux

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install tmux

Fedora/RHEL

sudo dnf install tmux

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S tmux

Verifying Installation

Check that everything is installed correctly:

# Check Colony version
colony --version

# Check Claude Code version
claude --version

# Check tmux version
tmux -V

# Check Git version
git --version

# Check Rust version
rustc --version

Configuration

After installation, initialize your first colony:

# Navigate to your project directory
cd /path/to/your/project

# Initialize colony configuration
colony init

This creates a colony.yml configuration file in your project directory.

Updating Colony

To update Colony to the latest version:

cargo install cc-colony --force

Or if you installed from source:

cd cc-colony
git pull
cargo install --path . --force

Troubleshooting

tmux not found

If colony start fails with "tmux not found":

  1. Install tmux using your package manager
  2. Verify tmux is in your PATH: which tmux

Permission denied

If you get permission errors:

# Ensure the binary is executable
chmod +x ~/.cargo/bin/colony

Build failures

If cargo build fails:

  1. Update Rust: rustup update
  2. Clean build artifacts: cargo clean
  3. Try building again: cargo build --release

Next Steps