Quickstart

Build agents that get smarter with every use.

Rich Threads keep messages, generative UI, and tool activity available across sessions and devices.

Learning turns real usage into skills that improve your agent.

Build a new agent or bring one you already have. Any frontend, any backend.

Prerequisites#

Before you begin, you'll need the following:

An OpenAI API key
Node.js 20+
Your favorite package manager

Getting started#

Create a free account#

Sign up for a free developer account for CopilotKit Intelligence to get a license key. You'll use it later to enable persistent threads and the inspector.

Choose your starting point#

You can either start fresh with our starter template or integrate CopilotKit into your existing Mastra Agent.

Run our CLI#

npx copilotkit@latest create

The CLI walks you through:

Project name
CopilotKit Intelligence — persistent threads and the inspector. Choose Yes to scaffold a project pre-wired for the platform (the CLI walks you through sign-up, or you can create an account first), or No for a standard Mastra setup.
Framework — pick Mastra when prompted.

Install dependencies#

npm install

Configure your environment#

Create a .env file and add your OpenAI API key:

.env

OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key

What about other models?

The starter template is configured to use OpenAI's GPT-4o by default, but you can modify it to use any language model supported by Mastra.

Start the development server#

npm run dev

pnpm dev

yarn dev

bun dev

This will start both the UI and agent servers concurrently.

🎉 Start chatting!#

Your AI agent is now ready to use! Try asking it some questions:

What tools do you have access to?

What do you think about React?

Show me some cool things you can do!

Troubleshooting

If you're having connection issues, try using 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost
Make sure your Mastra agent is running on port 4111, and that MASTRA_BASE_URL points at it
curl http://127.0.0.1:4111/api/agents should list your agent by name
Check that your OpenAI API key is correctly set in the .env file

Open Inspector and confirm setup#

On localhost, click the Inspector button in the corner of the app.

Open Agents, then Agent. Your agent is listed.
Send a chat message. Open Agents, then AG-UI Events. Events are moving.
Open Threads. The list is unlocked (Intelligence is on), or locked with Enable Intelligence (Intelligence is off).

More detail: Inspector.

What's next?#

Now that you have your basic agent setup, explore these advanced features:

Implement Human in the Loop

Allow your users and agents to collaborate together on tasks.

Add some generative UI

Render your agent's progress and output in the UI.

Setup frontend actions

Give your agent the ability to call frontend tools, directly updating your application.