Get started
Install Spruce
Spruce is a native desktop app — small, fast, and offline-first. Pick your platform below.
- Download
Get the latest Spruce release from buildwithspruce.com.
- Install
Open the
.dmgfile and drag Spruce into your Applications folder. - Launch
Open Spruce from Applications (or Spotlight). On first launch, macOS may prompt you to confirm the app is from a trusted developer; approve to continue.
- Download
Get the latest Spruce installer (
.exe) from buildwithspruce.com. - Install
Run the installer and follow the prompts.
- Launch
Open Spruce from the Start menu.
Windows installer splash screen
- Download
Get the latest Spruce build from buildwithspruce.com:
.AppImage,.deb, or.tar.gz. - Install
Run the AppImage directly, install the
.debwith your package manager (sudo apt install ./spruce_*.deb), or extract the tarball wherever you want it. - Launch
Launch Spruce from your applications launcher (
.deb/ AppImage with desktop integration) or run the binary directly.
Windows and Linux each have a few platform-specific quirks. See Platform Notes for known issues on both.
Spruce is a Tauri v2 app. It ships as a native binary per platform: no Electron, no bundled browser, no background runtime.
After the first launch
The first time you launch Spruce, it walks you through a short welcome wizard before showing you the project home screen.
Welcome wizard — the multi-step first-run walkthrough
- Welcome
A splash screen with a Get Started button. The screen also offers an import identity option if you already have a Spruce profile exported from another machine.
- Profile
Set your display name and color. This is what shows up next to comments you author and on the project switcher.
- GitHub
Connect your GitHub account so Spruce can list and clone your repositories during project setup. You can skip this step and connect later from Settings.
- Git Config
Confirm your git
user.nameanduser.email(Spruce reads them from your global git config, but you can override them here per profile). These get stamped on commits Spruce makes on your behalf. - Agent
Pick the AI agent Spruce uses when you run actions. The step shows every agent it knows about (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini, Kiro) with detection status — installed agents are clickable, missing ones link to their install pages. For agents that need MCP setup before they can use Spruce (e.g. Kiro), there's a one-click Set up MCP affordance. You can change this later under Settings → Agents.
After the wizard, Spruce drops you on an empty project home screen with two options: Open an existing project, or Create or Import a new one. See Open Your First Project for the full project-setup walkthrough.
The Spruce daemon
On first use, Spruce spawns a small background process called the Spruce daemon that backs terminal sessions and other long-running pieces. You don't need to start or manage it manually.
For what the daemon does, where it lives on each platform, and how to inspect or restart it, see The Spruce daemon in the CLI reference.
Related
- Open Your First Project — what to do after install.
- Spruce CLI — the
spruce-clitool and the daemon. - Platform Notes — platform-specific behaviour and known issues.