Quickstart

This guide walks through AgentFlow in under ten minutes using --dry-run. You will see how intent resolves into a plan and cost estimate without invoking external agents or validation shells—so you can explore orchestration safely on a real repository layout.

When you are comfortable with the flow, remove --dry-run only after agents and validation commands are configured.

1. Build and initialize

Start from a built binary and a clean project tree:

make build
export PATH="$PWD/bin:$PATH"
cd your-repo
agentflow init
agentflow doctor

doctor surfaces configuration gaps (missing agents, MCP settings, budget files) before you spend tokens on a full run.

2. Dry-run a natural-language workflow

Natural-language work is the highest-level entry point. These commands show planning and estimation without side effects:

agentflow work "develop my-feature" --dry-run --plan-only
agentflow work "develop my-feature" --dry-run --estimate-only

--plan-only resolves intent and prints the execution plan. --estimate-only runs the V3 pipeline through cost and context estimation without calling external agent CLIs.

3. Inspect individual pipeline commands

If you already maintain a Kiro spec folder (for example .kiro/specs/my-feature/), you can exercise each pipeline step in isolation:

agentflow plan my-feature --dry-run
agentflow enrich my-feature --dry-run
agentflow dev my-feature --dry-run
agentflow verify my-feature --dry-run
agentflow review my-feature --dry-run
agentflow status --dry-run

Dry-run here means orchestration and logging run locally; external processes are not spawned.

4. Read run reports

After a dry-run work creates run metadata, inspect artifacts:

agentflow status --dry-run
agentflow report <run-id> --dry-run

Reports are written under .agentflow/runs/<run-id>/report.md with companion JSON for tooling.

Run for real

When configuration is ready and you accept external process execution, escalate deliberately:

agentflow work "develop my-feature" --estimate-only   # cost gate first
agentflow work "develop my-feature"                   # guided confirmation by default

Use --estimate-only as an economic gate before paying for agent time. The default work path still prompts for confirmation unless you opt into non-interactive flags documented in the CLI reference.

Related reading

• First workflow
• CLI reference