Get started

Install Backbencher

One command puts the bb CLI in ~/.local/bin. Everything — the index, the analysis, the MCP server — runs locally. Your source code never leaves your machine.

macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://backbencher.cc/install.sh | bash

Windows PowerShell

irm https://backbencher.cc/install.ps1 | iex

Verify

bb --version

If bb is not found, run ~/.local/bin/bb --version and add ~/.local/bin to your PATH.

What gets installed

The installer downloads release 1.0.19 binaries from the ishaq2321/bb GitHub releases channel (version-pinned, sha256-verified when a checksum is published). The installer release channel and the engine version (0.3.0) are tracked separately; this page states both so you always know what you are getting.

Pin or upgrade

Re-run the installer with a specific release:

curl -fsSL https://backbencher.cc/install.sh | bash -s --   # latest pinned release
VERSION=1.0.19 curl -fsSL https://backbencher.cc/install.sh | bash

The inherited bb upgrade command currently targets upstream OpenCode release channels — rerun the installer instead until that is corrected.

Next steps

Index a project: bb index — see the first index guide
Connect an MCP client: bb mcp — see the MCP server docs
Enable semantic search: bb setup — see embeddings setup

Read the docs Common questions