poly setup¶
Set up everything the ADK needs in one command: authentication, shell completion, AI agent skills, and a project. Each step is skipped automatically if it is already done, so poly setup is safe to re-run at any time.
Examples:
The four steps, in order:
- Authentication — runs the browser sign-in flow and saves an API key, exactly like
poly login. Skipped if credentials already exist. - Shell completion — installs tab completion for your shell. For bash and zsh this appends an
eval "$(poly completion <shell>)"line to your rc file; for fish it writes~/.config/fish/completions/poly.fish. Skipped if already configured. Seepoly completionfor the manual route. - AI agent skills — installs the ADK skills into coding agents detected on your machine (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and others) via the
npx skillspackage. Skipped with a warning if Node.js 18+ is not available — a missing Node never fails setup. - Project — offers to create a new Agent Studio project or connect an existing one, as
poly project createandpoly initdo. Skipped if the directory already contains a project.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--region |
Region to sign in to. If omitted, you will be prompted to select one. |
--base-path |
Base path for project setup. Defaults to the current working directory. |
--skip-auth |
Skip the authentication step. |
--skip-skills |
Skip installing AI agent skills. |
--agent NAME |
Install skills only into this coding agent (repeatable), e.g. claude-code, cursor, codex. |
--dev |
Install skills from the local ./skills directory instead of the published ADK repo (for skill development). |
--global, -g |
Install skills user-level (available in every project) instead of into the current project. |
The skills step needs Node.js 18+
Skill installation shells out to npx, which requires Node.js 18 or newer. Without it, the step is skipped with a warning and the rest of setup completes normally — install Node and re-run poly setup to add the skills later.
Re-run after anything changes
Because every step checks whether it is already done, poly setup doubles as a repair command — re-run it after installing Node, switching shells, or clearing credentials, and only the missing pieces are redone.
Related pages¶
- Tooling — the coding-agent integrations the skills step installs into