---
title: Getting started
description: What the platform is made of, and the shortest path from a clone to a running stack.
sidebar:
  label: Overview
  order: 1
---

UseAgent is a multi-package repository with one product UI, one backend control
plane, and shared TypeScript packages that define the cross-package contracts.
Everything a user sees is a rendering of the backend's durable event log.

## The three moving parts

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Frontend" icon="monitor">
    A Next.js UI at port `3400`. Chat, agent sessions, skills, playbooks, wiki,
    knowledge, memory hub, artifacts, secrets, learnings review, automations,
    dashboard, review, apps, and settings. Browser `/api/*` calls are proxied to
    the backend.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Backend" icon="server">
    A Hono and Postgres control plane at port `3201`. Auth, org scoping, runs,
    sandboxes, engines, knowledge, memory, skills, automations, artifacts,
    uploads, and connectors.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Shared packages" icon="package">
    Runtime-neutral client and harness contracts, artifact renderers, and the
    deterministic conformance suite that guards them.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How a request travels

<div style={{ background: "#ffffff", border: "1px solid #ebebeb", borderRadius: "12px", padding: "12px", margin: "16px 0 8px" }}>
  <img
    src="/docs/diagrams/command-lane-round-trip.svg"
    alt="The command-lane round trip: Web UI, Slack, or an automation becomes a durable command, a run worker spawns a one-shot engine in a sandbox, native frames are canonicalized into the Postgres event log, and a thread-scoped SSE stream renders the session timeline."
    style={{ display: "block", width: "100%", height: "auto" }}
  />
</div>

*The command-lane round trip: every entry point lands in the same durable command lane, and the UI only ever renders the canonical event log.*

1. **A command enters the lane**

    A prompt from the web app, Slack, or a scheduled automation becomes a durable
    command with an idempotency key, so retries never duplicate work.

2. **A run executes in a sandbox**

    The backend claims a sandbox, spawns the engine one-shot, and streams its
    output into the event log as canonical steps.

3. **The UI renders the log**

    The session view subscribes to a thread-scoped stream and reduces events into
    a timeline. Reconnects receive a fresh durable snapshot.

Read [Quickstart](/getting-started/quickstart) to run it locally, then
[Repository map](/getting-started/repository-map) for where each piece lives. The
[Concepts](/concepts) section defines every term used above.

:::tip
The runtime is **Bun** everywhere. The two apps and the five `packages/*` each
carry their own lockfile: install inside `frontend/` and `backend/` to run the
dev servers, and inside each package before `bun run typecheck`.
:::