init

Initialize Terse

Get the user fully set up on Terse: CLI installed, logged in, and a project scaffolded. Optional argument: $ARGUMENTS (project directory name).

How to think about this

Don't preflight. Don't run find, ls, terse --version, or terse integrate list to "check the environment" before doing anything. Just run terse init and react to whatever it tells you. The CLI already knows how to detect existing projects, missing auth, taken directory names, and a missing package.json. Trust its error messages and recover from them.

Reference docs

For anything beyond a vanilla setup, pull the live docs:

• Doc index: https://docs.useterse.ai/llms.txt
• CLI reference: https://docs.useterse.ai/reference/cli, the authoritative source for terse init, terse login, terse integrate, and friends.

Steps

1. Run terse init

terse init <project-name>   # scaffold into a new subdirectory
terse init                  # scaffold into the current directory (must be empty of npm files)

Use the project name from $ARGUMENTS if provided, otherwise scaffold into the current directory.

Set the Bash timeout to 600000 (10 minutes). Dependency install and browser-side auth can both take a while.

terse init handles auth itself: if the user is not logged in, it opens the browser to WorkOS and waits for them to authorize. Tell the user a browser tab may pop up. The single command scaffolds files, installs dependencies, logs in if needed, creates the remote Terse project, writes terse.config.json, and runs terse generate.

2. React to errors

If terse init fails, read the error and recover:

• command not found: terse: install the CLI with npm i -g terse-cli (or pnpm add -g terse-cli / yarn global add terse-cli if the user prefers), then retry terse init.
• Detected an existing npm project in this directory: the directory has a package.json. If it also has a terse.config.json or src/terse.generated.ts, the user is already set up: stop, do not re-init, and offer /terse:create for adding a job. If it is some other npm project, recommend terse attach (adds Terse to an existing project) or rerun with a project name to scaffold a sibling directory.
• Directory "X" already exists: pick a different project name, or have the user cd into the existing directory so you can evaluate from there.
• ACTION REQUIRED: Not authenticated: only happens if the user passed --non-interactive (CI mode) or the device-code flow timed out. Run terse login via Bash with a 10-minute timeout, then retry terse init.
• Failed to create Terse project: the API key is valid but the remote create failed. The local scaffold still exists. Surface the error to the user and suggest retrying after fixing connectivity, or creating the project from the dashboard and writing terse.config.json manually.

3. Hand off

The CLI prints a "Next steps" block at the end of a successful terse init. Don't repeat it verbatim. Just remind the user of the one or two things they said they wanted to do, in this order of likelihood:

1. Connect more integrations: terse integrate connect <type>.
2. Use /terse:create <description> to scaffold their first job.
3. Run terse deploy once a job is written.