# Getting started

> Install Muxen, add your first machine, and start an agent on it.

## Install

Download Muxen for your computer ( Download: coming soon ):

- **macOS**: a signed app for macOS 12 or later. Drag it to Applications.
- **Windows 11**: an installer. It installs for you (no administrator needed), and can add `muxen` to your PATH for terminals and AI agents.
- **Linux**: the same app, as a download.

On a Mac, **Settings › General › Command line** installs the `muxen` command, for your terminal and your AI agents.

## Make sure ssh works

Muxen reaches machines the way you would from a terminal: `ssh` with a key, no password prompt. If `ssh my-machine` works in your terminal without asking for a password, Muxen can add it.

- **A Mac**: turn on **Remote Login** in System Settings › General › Sharing.
- **Linux**: install and start the ssh server (`sudo apt install openssh-server` on Ubuntu and Debian).
- **Windows**: turn on **OpenSSH Server** in Settings › System › Optional features. See [Windows](https://muxin.dev/docs/windows).

Then give it your key once, with your password there:

```
ssh-copy-id you@my-machine.local
```

> **Note:** Muxen uses your `~/.ssh/config`: aliases, users, ports, keys and jump hosts all work as they do in your terminal.

## Add a machine

Click **Add machine** (`⌘N`). Give it a name and its ssh destination: `you@host`, an alias from your ssh config, or `local` for the computer you're on. Muxen suggests your ssh aliases, the computers on your Tailscale network and the ones it finds on your local network.

![The Add a machine dialog: a name, an ssh host, and suggestions from the ssh config, the tailnet and the local network.](https://muxin.dev/images/shots/addmachine-dark.png?v=7fed41ce)

*Suggestions come from your ssh config, your tailnet and your local network.*

Muxen checks the machine right away: a read-only look at its CPU, memory, disk, what's running and what needs attention. Nothing is installed by a check. The machine shows up in the sidebar and on the overview.

![A machine's page: its CPU, memory, disk and uptime, its sessions, servers, connection and git.](https://muxin.dev/images/shots/beacon-dark.png?v=f2bd5b62)

*A machine's page: how it's doing, what's running, its servers and how Muxen reaches it.*

## Start an agent

Click **New session** (`⌘T`), pick the machine, the agent and the folder, and optionally what it should work on. The agent runs on that machine and keeps going when you close Muxen; come back to it from the sidebar.

![The New session dialog: the machines (VMs under the one they're in), the agents installed there, and the folder.](https://muxin.dev/images/shots/newsession-dark.png?v=2fdcd6a2)

*Machines, then the agents installed on the one you pick, then where it works.*

## Next

- [Machines](https://muxin.dev/docs/machines): what the overview and a machine's page tell you.
- [Agent sessions](https://muxin.dev/docs/sessions): splits, waiting agents, opening a folder in your editor.
- [MCP for your agents](https://muxin.dev/docs/agents): let Claude Code or Codex use Muxen.