Quickstart

From nothing to a running Cronable in a few minutes.

Create your account and choose a plan at cronable.ai/signup. You’ll get an email + a downloads page.

2. Install

One line — it logs you in and sets everything up. Works on macOS and Linux:

# Per-user (macOS, or Linux desktop) — no sudo:
curl -fsSL https://downloads.cronable.ai/install.sh | bash
 
# Linux server — system service (runs at boot):
curl -fsSL https://downloads.cronable.ai/install.sh | sudo bash

Why sudo? Only to install the machine-wide service (an isolated user + boot startup). The daemon itself never runs as root either way. No sudo → a per-user install that runs as you. More below.

The installer prompts for your account email + password (the ones from signup), fetches your license, installs the daemon + local dashboard, and opens it. Prefer not to pipe? Download it first — curl -fsSLO https://downloads.cronable.ai/install.sh && bash install.sh. Have a raw license key instead of an account? Add --license-key <KEY>.

A native macOS .dmg (double-click, no terminal) is on the way — see your account page. Until then the one-liner above is the Mac path too.

3. Open the dashboard

macOS: the dashboard opens automatically.
Linux: the install command prints the URL (default http://127.0.0.1:3000).

4. Your first job

On first launch the dashboard asks whether you’d like Simple or Advanced mode (and you can switch, and change the language, from the header anytime — see Simple & Advanced modes). In Simple mode a guided wizard walks you through creating a job; in Advanced mode you add a node from the palette (try a Terminal or Claude job), give it a schedule, and save. Either way the job is stored as YAML under ~/cronable-jobs — the source of truth.

Updating

Updates apply automatically in the background (signed, staged, with rollback). To check/apply now:

cronable update

Installer modes

The same one-liner installs two ways depending on whether you use sudo:

	Per-user (`\| bash`)	System service (`\| sudo bash`)
Where	`~/.cronable` (your home)	`/opt` + `/etc/systemd`
Runs as	you	a dedicated `cronable` user
Service	launchd agent (macOS) / `systemd --user` (Linux)	system `systemd` unit
Starts	at your login	at boot (survives logout/reboot)
Needs root	no	only to install

sudo is install-time only — it creates the isolated cronable user, the /opt install, and the systemd unit. Once running, systemd launches the daemon as cronable, not root. So in both modes the daemon runs non-root, which is exactly what lets it drive claude with bypassPermissions (the Claude CLI refuses to bypass permissions when running as root). Never sudo the macOS install — it’s per-user by design, and a root agent would break that.

Pick system service for an always-on server; per-user for a desktop/dev machine or when you’d rather not touch system dirs.

Next: the Job reference and Extensions.

Introduction Simple & Advanced modes