Quickstart

Install and sign in

npm install -g @9thprotocol/cli
9p login

Approve the code in the browser. See Installation.

Open a project

cd ~/code/your-project
9p

9p always works in the current directory — there is no project to create or index first.

Ask for something small

9p ❯ what does the auth middleware do?

9p searches, reads what it needs, and answers. Read-only work like this routes to a cheap model automatically.

Make a change

9p ❯ add a --verbose flag to the CLI and document it in the README

Before anything is written or run, 9p asks:

● permission write src/cli.ts — allow? [y/N]

Approve per action, or switch modes with /mode accept-edits once you trust the direction. See Permissions.

Watch the cost

Every turn ends with what it used:

◆ auto → moonshotai/kimi-k2.7-code (normal task)
⏺ 6 calls · 41.2k in (36.8k cached) · 1.1k out

The auto → line is the router telling you which model it picked and why.

A first real task

A good opening task is one where you can check the result yourself:

9p ❯ find every place we parse dates by hand and list them with file:line.
     don't change anything yet.

Then, once you agree with the list:

9p ❯ replace those with the date helper in src/lib/date.ts. run the tests after.

Working in two steps — investigate, then act — is the single biggest quality lever with any coding agent.

Command	What it does
`/mode plan`	Read-only. 9p can look but not touch.
`/model`	Show the current model; `/model auto` hands routing back.
`/bias economy`	Push Auto toward cheaper models.
`/usage`	Credits and tokens for this session.
`/clear`	Fresh context, same session.

Full list in CLI reference.

A 9P.md it reads every session.

Turn a repeated task into /deploy.