First Run

Guide to your first CortexPrism session.

The Setup Wizard

When you run cortex for the first time (or cortex setup), the setup wizard will prompt you for:

1. LLM Provider — Choose from 12+ providers: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, Groq, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, xAI, Together AI, AWS Bedrock, Cohere, Ollama
2. API Key — Enter the API key for your chosen provider
3. Model Selection — Choose your default model (e.g., claude-sonnet-4-20250514, gpt-4o, gemini-2.0-flash)
4. Data Directory — Where to store data (defaults to ~/.cortex/)

Configuration File

After setup, your configuration is stored at ~/.cortex/config.json:

{
  "version": 1,
  "defaultProvider": "anthropic",
  "providers": {
    "anthropic": {
      "kind": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
      "apiKey": "sk-ant-..."
    }
  },
  "agent": {
    "name": "Cortex",
    "maxTurns": 50,
    "streamOutput": true
  },
  "router": {
    "enabled": false,
    "confidenceThreshold": 0.7,
    "cascade": []
  }
}

Data Directory

Default: ~/.cortex/data/

Override:

CORTEX_DATA_DIR=/data/cortex cortex chat

The data directory contains:

File	Contents
cortex.db	Core: sessions, jobs, policy rules
memory.db	5-tier memory: episodic, semantic, reflection
lens.db	Audit log: all events, tool calls, policy checks
vault.db	Encrypted credentials
plugins.db	Plugin registry
sess_*.db	Per-session message history

Your First Chat

cortex chat

On first chat, the system:

1. Starts background daemons (validator, executor, scheduler)
2. Initializes the chat session
3. Injects any relevant memory into context
4. Connects to your configured LLM provider

Type a message and the agent will respond. Try these:

• "What can you do?" — Learn about agent capabilities
• "Search the web for latest AI news" — Web search via DuckDuckGo
• "Run a Python script that calculates fibonacci" — Sandboxed code execution
• "Read the file ~/.cortex/config.json" — File reading via tool
• "Remember that I use VS Code" — Store a fact in memory

What Happens Behind the Scenes

Your message
  → Agent retrieves relevant memories
  → Builds prompt with context
  → Sends to LLM provider
  → LLM responds (may request tool calls)
  → Tool calls are validated by Parallax security
  → Approved tools execute (file read, web search, code run)
  → Results fed back to LLM for final response
  → Response streamed back to you
  → Session history saved to SQLite
  → Episodic memory written (async)
  → Reflection performed (async)