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Run your first agent

One request gets a reply from an agent in its own sandbox. You need an account on a Managoat instance and nothing else. No repository, no GitHub token, and no install. To run an instance of your own, read Self-host Managoat.

1. Your key and your agent

Create an API key in the console: open Account, then the API keys section (/account?open=api-keys). The console shows a key once, so copy it there.

export MANAGOAT_BASE_URL="https://fountain.example.com"

export MANAGOAT_API_KEY="the key you just created"

Use your instance's address as MANAGOAT_BASE_URL. A new account has no agents, so create one. It needs a name, a runtime and a model, and runs in a plain sandbox.

curl -sS -X POST "$MANAGOAT_BASE_URL/api/agents" \

  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MANAGOAT_API_KEY" \

  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \

  -d '{"name": "first", "runtime": "claude", "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-5"}'

The response holds the agent's id.

export MANAGOAT_AGENT_ID="the id of the agent you just created"

The CLI can do the rest for you once an agent exists: managoat auth login, then managoat quickstart.

Whose model key

An agent calls a model, so it needs an inference key. Add yours under Account, then Inference keys, before the first request. The server holds no key of its own (Inference).

2. Send the request

curl -sS -X POST "$MANAGOAT_BASE_URL/api/conversations" \

  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MANAGOAT_API_KEY" \

  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \

  -d "{\"agent_id\": \"$MANAGOAT_AGENT_ID\", \"prompt\": \"Which operating system and working directory are you in? Answer in one sentence.\"}"

Managoat starts a sandbox, starts the agent in it, and answers. The response holds the conversation id.

3. Read the reply

Read the conversation stream with the id from step 2.

curl -N -H "Authorization: Bearer $MANAGOAT_API_KEY" \

  "$MANAGOAT_BASE_URL/api/conversations/CONVERSATION_ID/stream?blocks=true"

That reply came from your agent, on a machine that Managoat operates for you. It is the whole product, in one request.

The same request from the SDK

npm install @managoat/sdk@^10.0.0

import { Managoat } from "@managoat/sdk";



const managoat = new Managoat();

const run = await managoat.runRequest({

  agent_id: "$MANAGOAT_AGENT_ID",

  prompt: "Which operating system and working directory are you in? Answer in one sentence.",

});



console.log(run.text);

new Managoat() reads MANAGOAT_API_KEY and MANAGOAT_BASE_URL from the environment, exactly as the CLI does. The request uses the same agent ID as the curl example. runRequest accepts API fields directly, with local timeout/event options passed separately. From another language, call the HTTP API directly.

Where to go next

The guided tour is the second page. It builds an agent that clones your repository, changes it, and opens a pull request.

To build on the SDK first, your first app turns the request above into a chat in your terminal: it streams the reply, then sends follow-ups to the same conversation.

Past the first request, the How-to guides take each next step.