Installation

Install Clother on macOS, Linux, or Windows WSL with a single curl command.

Platform support

Clother runs on macOS (zsh/bash), Linux (zsh/bash), and Windows WSL.

Install

1. Install Claude Code CLI

   Clother wraps the Claude Code CLI, so you need it installed first.

   curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
   
2. Install Clother

   Run the one-liner installer. It downloads the release binary for your OS and architecture, verifies its checksum, and runs the install command.

   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jolehuit/clother/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
   

   The installer places everything in your bin directory and exits.

3. Verify the installation

   Check that Clother is available and the launchers are in place.

   clother status
   

What gets installed

The installer places the following into your bin directory:

File	Purpose
clother	The main binary. Handles config, list, info, status, and other management commands.
clother-*	One symlink per provider (e.g. clother-zai, clother-kimi, clother-ollama).
claude shim	A symlink that keeps claude --resume ... working with Clother features.

API keys are stored separately in ~/.local/share/clother/secrets.env (permissions 600).

Default install paths

Platform	Default bin directory
macOS	~/bin
Linux	~/.local/bin (XDG standard)

Custom install path

You can override the default with the --bin-dir flag or the CLOTHER_BIN environment variable.

--bin-dir flag

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jolehuit/clother/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --bin-dir ~/.local/bin

Adding the bin directory to PATH

If clother is not found after installation, add the bin directory to your shell’s PATH.

macOS / zsh (~/.zshrc)

export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"

Reload your shell (source ~/.zshrc or open a new terminal) for the change to take effect.

Updating

To update Clother in place and refresh all installed launchers:

clother install

Uninstalling

clother uninstall

This removes the clother binary, all clother-* symlinks, and the claude shim from your bin directory.