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Quickstart Guide

Current Version: 1.0.15

Go from zero to your first secure AI workflow in 15 minutes. This guide walks you through everything step-by-step.

Current version: 1.0.15. Rich terminal UI, environment auto-detection, accessibility modes, workflow validation, 53 PII patterns, Merkle audit proofs, and ablation benchmarking.

What You'll Build

By the end of this guide, you'll have:

  • ✅ AKIOS installed and configured
  • ✅ Your first AI workflow running with real LLM calls
  • ✅ Understanding of project structure and how to create custom workflows
  • ✅ Knowledge of security features and audit logs

Prerequisites

  • 5 minutes of your time
  • An API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, Mistral, or Gemini (get free keys below)
  • Docker installed (for cross-platform) OR Python 3.9+ (for Linux)

Step 1: Install AKIOS (2 minutes)

Choose your platform:

Linux users:

pip install akios>=1.0.15

macOS/Windows users or teams:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/akios-ai/akios/main/src/akios/cli/data/wrapper.sh
mv wrapper.sh akios
chmod +x akios

That's it! Installation done.

Step 2: Create Your Project (1 minute)

# Linux (pip)
akios init my-project

# macOS/Windows/Docker
./akios init my-project

# Go into your project
cd my-project

What just happened? AKIOS created a complete project structure:

  • templates/ - Pre-built workflow examples
  • workflows/ - Where you'll put custom workflows
  • data/input/ and data/output/ - For file operations
  • audit/ - Security and compliance logs
  • config.yaml - Runtime settings

Step 3: Configure Your API Key (2 minutes)

The setup wizard makes this easy:

# Linux (pip)
akios setup

# macOS/Windows/Docker
../akios setup

The wizard asks you:

  1. Which AI provider? (OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, Mistral, or Gemini)
  2. What's your API key? (Paste it securely)
  3. Set a budget limit? (Default $1.00 per workflow)

Get free API keys:

Step 4: Run Your First Workflow (5 minutes)

# Linux (pip)
akios run templates/hello-workflow.yml

# macOS/Windows/Docker
../akios run templates/hello-workflow.yml

What you'll see:

✓ Loading configuration...
✓ Step 1: LLM generates greeting
✓ Step 2: Saves to file
✓ Workflow completed
Cost: $0.0012 | Time: 3.2s

Check the results:

akios files output
cat data/output/run_*/hello-ai.txt

You just ran your first secure AI workflow! 🎉

Step 5: Explore Security Features

Check system status:

akios status

Shows security level, PII redaction, budget remaining, and audit status — now with a rich terminal UI.

Activate the security cage:

akios cage up
akios cage status

Scan files for PII before processing:

akios protect scan data/input/document.txt
akios protect preview templates/hello-workflow.yml

Run diagnostics:

akios doctor

Checks your system for compatibility issues (kernel, seccomp, cgroups, Docker).

View the execution timeline:

akios timeline

Get the latest output as deployable JSON (for CI/CD):

akios output latest

View audit logs:

akios logs --limit 10
akios audit verify

Every action is cryptographically logged for compliance.

See available templates:

akios templates list

Generate a compliance report:

akios compliance report templates/hello-workflow.yml

Create Your Own Workflow

Copy and customize a template:

cp templates/hello-workflow.yml workflows/my-greeting.yml
nano workflows/my-greeting.yml  # Edit the prompt
akios run workflows/my-greeting.yml

Common Tasks

Process a document:

echo "Contact john@example.com" > data/input/doc.txt
akios run templates/document_ingestion.yml

Clean old runs:

akios clean --old-runs

Troubleshooting

"API key not valid" → Run akios setup --force

"Permission denied" → Linux: sudo usermod -aG docker $USER then logout/login

"SIGTRAP crash with sudo" → Fixed in v1.0.5. Upgrade: sudo pip3 install --upgrade akios

"Workflow failed" → Check akios logs --limit 5 or see Debugging

What's Next?

You're ready to build secure AI workflows! 🚀

ESC