LanesLanes
Docs/Desktop/Getting Started/Quick start

Quick start

Install Lanes and get your first agent session running, in about two minutes.

Install to a running agent session, in about two minutes.

1. Install

Bash
brew install --cask lanes-sh/lanes/lanes && open -a Lanes

macOS Ventura or later. Native on Apple Silicon and Intel.

2. Point Lanes at your code

The welcome screen offers four ways in: grant folder access, add a project, start a CLI session, or open a bare terminal.

Pick Add a project and choose the folder your repos live in. That becomes the default location for new sessions, and you can change it or set a per-issue working directory later under Settings > General.

3. Create an issue

Press Cmd+N. Lanes creates a draft issue in Backlog and opens it in the panel, ready to edit. There is no dialog to fill in first.

Give it a title, and put the prompt you want the agent to run in Instructions. Everything else has a default: the working directory comes from your project, and the worktree strategy decides whether this issue gets its own git branch or works in place.

Cmd+T does the same for a quick Misc task.

4. Start a session

With the issue open, start it one of two ways:

  • Plan runs the agent in plan mode. It works out the scope and proposes an approach before changing anything.
  • Implement starts work immediately.

Lanes spawns a real terminal, attaches it to the issue, and the agent starts running. You watch the output live, and the card on the board shows whether it is busy, waiting on you, or stopped.

One issue can hold several sessions at once, so the plan run and the two implementation runs it spawned stay on the same card.

5. Work with it

  • Type in the terminal to talk to the agent.
  • Drag files onto it to inject their paths.
  • Cmd+R sends the issue to Review without stopping the session.
  • Cmd+D completes it, which stops the session and offers to clean up the worktree.

The Stop button in the panel toolbar, and Stop Runtime on the card's right-click menu, both end a session without moving the issue.

Find your way around

Sidebar, leftProjects and worktrees. Collapse it for more board space
Board, centreYour issues, in columns by workflow step
Detail panel, bottomThe terminal on the left, issue notes and metadata on the right

The status bar shows connection state, how many sessions are running, and total tokens and cost.

Next: The issue board, or Sessions for what a session actually is.

Join the Discord for updates and questions.