title: Getting started description: Install gild, connect Slack, create your first gild, and prompt an agent. order: 1

Getting started

gild is a desktop app that turns a Slack channel into a shared workspace — a gild — where your team and your local AI coding agents collaborate. This guide takes you from install to your first agent session.

1. Install gild

Head to the download page. It detects your operating system and links the right installer:

  • macOS — a .dmg (Apple Silicon or Intel)
  • Windows — an installer .exe
  • Linux — an .AppImage or .deb

The app is a native webview with a thin Rust shell; all of the logic runs in a local Node "core". It is light on memory and fast to launch.

2. Connect Slack

You have two ways to connect:

  1. Shared gild app (default). One click opens your browser, you authorize gild in your Slack workspace, and the token is deep-linked straight back into the app's secure storage. gild never stores your token on a server.
  2. Bring your own Slack app. Create a Slack app yourself and paste the bot, user, and app-level tokens. The website is never involved — a fully serverless, privacy-first setup.

Either way, your tokens live in the OS keyring and never touch disk in plaintext.

3. Create a gild

A gild is a Slack channel named gild-<slug>. Create one from the app, add one or more repositories, and invite your teammates — they are simply members of the channel.

4. Prompt an agent

Type /agent in the composer, pick a repo, branch, provider (Claude or Codex), and model, then send your prompt. gild creates a fresh git worktree, opens a Slack thread, and streams the agent's work into an interactive console. When the session finishes, a final reply and a full transcript file are posted to the thread — so your whole team can follow along and even resume the session on their own machine.