Get Paperclip running locally in under 5 minutes. 
npx paperclipai onboard --yes
This walks you through setup, configures your environment, and gets Paperclip running. To start Paperclip again later: 
npx paperclipai run
Note: If you used npx for setup, always use npx paperclipai to run commands. The pnpm paperclipai form only works inside a cloned copy of the Paperclip repository (see Local Development below).

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Local Development

For contributors working on Paperclip itself. Prerequisites: Node.js 20+ and pnpm 9+. Clone the repository, then: 
pnpm install
pnpm dev
This starts the API server and UI at http://localhost:3100. No external database required — Paperclip uses an embedded PostgreSQL instance by default. When working from the cloned repo, you can also use: 
pnpm paperclipai run
This auto-onboards if config is missing, runs health checks with auto-repair, and starts the server.

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What’s Next

Once Paperclip is running:
  1. Create your first company in the web UI
  2. Define a company goal
  3. Create a CEO agent and configure its adapter
  4. Build out the org chart with more agents
  5. Set budgets and assign initial tasks
  6. Hit go — agents start their heartbeats and the company runs

Core Concepts

Learn the key concepts behind Paperclip