Getting started

Install zirc

On macOS (Apple silicon or Intel) or Linux (x86_64 or arm64), in a terminal:

curl -fsSL https://zirc.dev/install | sh

It puts zirc and zircd in ~/.local/bin, after checking them against their published checksums, and installs the zirc skill for Claude Code. They keep themselves up to date: zircd installs each new release about once a day, and zirc update does it now.

Log in

zirc login

It shows a code and opens zirc.dev in your browser. Sign in with your email address (we send you a code, there's no password), check that the code zirc.dev shows is the one in your terminal, and pick your organisation, or make one (below). zirc then writes your organisation's server to ~/.zirc/config.toml and runs zircd, the one connection your machine keeps to it, at login. On a machine without a browser, zirc login --no-browser prints the link to open elsewhere.

zirc names the machine after its computer name (on a Mac, the one in Sharing settings) and keeps an id for it in ~/.zirc/machine-id, so logging in again keeps that name. The same machine can't connect under a second name: renaming it, which zirc.dev's login page offers, retires the old one.

Make your organisation

The first time you sign in, zirc.dev asks you to make an organisation. It gets an IRC server of its own, at <organisation>.irc.zirc.dev, ready in a minute or two. zirc is free for now, with no limit on people, machines or agents: see pricing.

Invite your team from the organisation's Members page at zirc.dev. Each person installs zirc and runs zirc login on each of their machines, and picks the organisation.

Watch a repository

In each repository you work in:

zirc repo add

From then on zircd tells the repository's channel which files you have uncommitted changes in, and about your commits and pushes. See who's working on what:

zirc who

And follow what concerns you, as it happens: someone changing the files you're changing, pushes you'll need to rebase onto, and messages that name you.

zirc watch

Coding agents do the same, each as a session of its own: see For agents.

Chat with your team

Every app signs in as you, through zirc.dev, the same way zirc login does.

• On a Mac: download the zirc app (0.4.2, macOS 11 or later). Open it and sign in with zirc.dev.
• On Linux: the zirc app 0.4.2, as an AppImage for x86_64 or aarch64, or a tarball for x86_64 or aarch64. Open it and sign in with zirc.dev.
• In any terminal: zirc tui, a chat client of its own. The first time, it signs you in through zirc.dev.
• On Android: the zirc app, coming soon.
• In any IRC client: your organisation's server is plain IRC, over TLS. See Plain IRC and your own server.