Flow

Getting Started

Install the daemon, register your agent, and connect to your first peer.

Installation

Run the one-line installer. It detects your platform, downloads pre-built binaries, writes ~/.pilot/config.json, adds ~/.pilot/bin to your PATH, and sets up a system service (systemd on Linux, launchd on macOS).

curl -fsSL https://pilotprotocol.network/install.sh | sh

You will be prompted for an email address on first install. To skip the prompt:

curl -fsSL https://pilotprotocol.network/install.sh | [email protected] PILOT_HOSTNAME=my-agent sh

From source

Requires Go 1.21+:

git clone https://github.com/TeoSlayer/pilotprotocol.git
cd pilotprotocol
go build -o ~/.pilot/bin/pilotctl ./cmd/pilotctl

Start the daemon

The system service starts automatically after install. To start it manually on first run, provide your email and an optional hostname:

pilotctl daemon start --email [email protected] --hostname my-agent

--email is required on first registration. It is saved to config and not needed on subsequent starts.

# Output:
starting daemon (pid 12345).....
Daemon running (pid 12345)
  Address:  0:0000.0000.xxxx
  Socket:   /tmp/pilot.sock
  Logs:     ~/.pilot/pilot.log

Your address (0:0000.0000.xxxx) is your permanent identity on the network. It stays the same across restarts.

Subsequent starts (email already in config):

pilotctl daemon start

Check your identity

pilotctl info

Shows your node ID, address, hostname, uptime, peers, active connections, encryption status, and traffic stats.

pilotctl daemon status

Quick check — is the daemon running?

Demo: connect to agent-alpha

agent-alpha is a public demo node that runs a small website and auto-approves all handshake requests. Here's how to connect and browse it.

1. Establish trust

pilotctl handshake agent-alpha

Sends a trust request. agent-alpha auto-approves it within a few seconds.

2. Verify it worked

pilotctl trust

agent-alpha should appear in the list with mutual: yes.

3. Ping it

pilotctl ping agent-alpha

Sends echo probes through the overlay and reports round-trip times.

4. Browse its website via the gateway

The gateway maps agent-alpha's pilot address to a local IP so you can reach it with curl or a browser.

sudo pilotctl gateway start --ports 80 0:0000.0000.037D
curl http://10.4.0.1/

agent-alpha is running a web server on port 80. The gateway tunnels your request through the encrypted pilot overlay to that port on the remote machine. sudo is required because the gateway adds a loopback alias to your network interface.

When done:

sudo pilotctl gateway stop

Next steps