Quick start

Four steps: install the GitHub app, install the CLI, run a session, make it recurring. Nothing runs on your machine.

Install the GitHub app

Go to app.ellipsis.dev/install, sign in with GitHub, and install the Ellipsis app on your account or organization. GitHub asks which repositories to grant; agents can only see the repositories you pick, and you can add more later from GitHub's app settings.

When the installation lands, the dashboard offers your signup credit: $100 for organizations, $10 for personal accounts. It funds your first sessions before usage-based billing starts.

Install the CLI

brew install ellipsis-dev/cli/agent
agent login

agent login opens your browser to approve the device code, then the CLI is signed in as you.

Run a session

From inside a checkout of one of your repositories:

$ agent "Summarize the pull requests merged this week"
✓ started session session_3Fp9dR2k
  https://app.ellipsis.dev/your-org?session=session_3Fp9dR2k
✻ Starting sandbox…
  ⎿ Cloning your-org/api-repo @ 4c19e7d
✓ Sandbox ready · your-org/api-repo
Bash  (gh search prs --merged --json title,number,closedAt)
Bash  (gh pr view 412 --json title,body,files)

Merged 9 pull requests this week. The largest change: request
validation moved into its own middleware (#412, #418). Two bug
fixes in the billing flow (#425, #431), and the CI pipeline now
caches dependencies, cutting build times roughly in half (#436).

That is a cloud session: a sandbox came up with the repository you are standing in cloned, the agent worked, and you are in the conversation. Type to steer it; Ctrl-C leaves it running in the cloud. Outside a checkout, name the repository with -r your-org/api-repo, or a saved environment with -e cloud_agent_environment.

Make it recurring

The same prompt as a file, committed to your default branch as agents/recent-work-summary.yaml:

ellipsis:
  version: v1
  name: Recent work summary
  description: A weekly summary of the code changes we shipped

trigger:
  type: cron
  schedule: "0 9 * * 1"

session:
  claude:
    system: |
      Use the GitHub tools to find the pull requests merged in the
      last week and summarize what the team has been working on.
      Keep it under 150 words and grounded in what the tools
      returned. Never invent activity.

  environment:
    repositories:
      - name: api-repo

  budget:
    session: 1.00

git add agents/recent-work-summary.yaml
git commit -m "Add weekly work summary automation"
git push

Ellipsis syncs the file on push. It is now an automation: every Monday at 09:00 UTC it starts a session on its own, and it appears on the dashboard's Automations page. Run it now instead of waiting:

$ agent automation run recent-work-summary
✓ started session_8Kq1wN7c
  https://app.ellipsis.dev/your-org?session=session_8Kq1wN7c
  follow with: agent session get session_8Kq1wN7c --watch

Next

• Sessions: flags, steering, conversations, what a session costs.
• Automations: triggers, deploying by git, invoking from the API.
• Environments: define the toolchain once, reference it by name.
• Organization: the defaults and ceilings every session resolves against.