API Preview - This API is under active development. Endpoints may change without notice.

Install on Arch Linux (AUR)

Install the ~alter CLI on Arch Linux and Arch-based distributions (Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Garuda) from the Arch User Repository. The local identity runtime is optional, and its AUR package is not published yet. The CLI on its own is enough to claim a ~handle, pair connectors and answer queries.

What the runtime package will install

•alter-runtime binary on $PATH.
•Systemd user unit alter-runtime.service for socket-activated startup.
•Default config root at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alter/ and runtime socket at $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/alter-runtime.sock.

Install

One package is published to the AUR, truealter-cli, which is the CLI.

yay -S truealter-cli

Runtime not published yet

The alter-runtime package is not on the AUR yet, so the daemon steps below describe what it will set up. Until it ships, install the runtime from PyPI with pip install alter-runtime. The CLI is also available via npm on any platform.

Start the daemon

bash

systemctl --user enable --now alter-runtime.service

Verify

bash

alter-runtime --version
systemctl --user status alter-runtime.service

Cross-platform unity

However a person installs alter-runtime, the runtime they get is the same runtime everyone else gets: same socket protocol, same ~handle resolution, same DNS-TXT discovery, same federation endpoints. Per-distro packaging optimises for local idioms (PKGBUILD on Arch, .deb on Debian, Formula on macOS) without diverging the runtime. The full operative invariants are documented in packaging/README.md.

Next steps

Getting started

Bind a ~handle and make your first authenticated request.

~handle protocol

How ~handle resolution works on top of the running daemon.