GenCr@ft is building Aethel, a multiplayer voxel RPG creative platform. Start from one workspace, run the onboarding script, and land in repositories where you can make a first contribution.
Under one hour, fewer than five shell commands, one bounded workspace, and a local folder with the right repositories for the first task.
You need two things before running the quickstart. The onboarding script checks everything else and guides you through any missing tools.
bash and curl.
Linux, macOS, and WSL2 on Windows all qualify.
The script detects your package manager and helps you install any missing tools.
One command. It installs prerequisites, signs you in to GitHub (one-time device code), clones the tools, and sets up your workspace. If nobody assigned one yet, start with aethel. See what the one command does for the full step-by-step.
# Interactive — pick your workspace when prompted:
curl -fsSL https://gencr-ft.github.io/onboard.sh | bash
# Or name the workspace up front (non-interactive):
curl -fsSL https://gencr-ft.github.io/onboard.sh | bash -s -- --workspace aethel# In your WSL2 Ubuntu shell, run the same one-liner:
curl -fsSL https://gencr-ft.github.io/onboard.sh | bash -s -- --workspace aethelYou only ever run the curl line above. Under the hood it runs in two phases: a small, secretless bootstrap that installs the shared tooling, then a hand-off to the gft onboard CLI that sets up your chosen workspace. Here is the exact sequence.
Run by curl -fsSL https://gencr-ft.github.io/onboard.sh | bash
git, curl, gh, python3).gcs-plt-tools, gcs-plt-gemop, gcs-core-governance) into ~/.gft-studio at a pinned release tag.gft CLI onto your PATH.exec gft onboard --workspace <id>.gft onboardThe CLI that sets up your workspace
~/.local/bin on your PATH.<current-folder>/<workspace>/ — next to where you ran the command, never a fixed home.<workspace>.code-workspace listing those repositories..claude/ (agents and skills) for AI assistance.Re-running the command is safe — every step is idempotent, so nothing already in place is re-cloned or overwritten. You can opt out of individual steps with --no-machine-setup, --no-editor, or --no-extensions. When it finishes, open your workspace with code <workspace>.code-workspace and run gft doctor to confirm everything is healthy.
Once your workspace is synced, you can boot the complete authoritative game backend locally — auth, persistence, and simulation.
Before you run it, this step needs a few tools that the onboarding one-liner does not install for you yet:
docker compose, and the daemon running (Docker Desktop on macOS and Windows)npmopensslwasm-pack — only needed when the Rust world-generation sources are newer than the built WASM packageRun the canonical entrypoint from the root of your workspace:
./start_aethel.shIt runs pre-flight checks, generates RS256 keys, starts local Postgres & Redis via Docker, builds the authoritative packages (voxel engine, PCG WASM), then boots the authentication and game-server simulation engines.
Services come up on :3010 (auth), :3100 (game HTTP), :3001 (game WebSocket), :5433 (Postgres) and :6380 (Redis). If a port is already in use, that is the first thing to check.
To connect the Godot client, point GODOT_BIN at your Godot 4.5 executable and open the client project:
# macOS (Godot installed from the official .app)
export GODOT_BIN="/Applications/Godot.app/Contents/MacOS/Godot"
# Linux / WSL2 (binary extracted in your workspace root)
export GODOT_BIN="$PWD/Godot_v4.5-stable_linux.x86_64"
"$GODOT_BIN" --path gcp-aethel-clientLog in with dev@aethel.local / Password1!. These are local development credentials only — they exist solely in your own Postgres container.
Onboarding is designed to be safe to re-run. Nothing already in place is re-cloned or overwritten, so running the same command again is always the first thing to try.
Re-run the one-liner. Most failures are transient — a dropped connection mid-clone, or an expired GitHub login. Re-running resumes where it stopped.
curl -fsSL https://gencr-ft.github.io/onboard.sh | bash -s -- --workspace <your-workspace>If it still fails, the message tells you which phase stopped:
| A prerequisite could not be installed | Install the named tool with your own package manager, then re-run. On macOS this usually means installing Homebrew first. |
| GitHub sign-in failed | Run gh auth login on its own, complete the device-code flow, then re-run. |
| A download was refused | Your account is probably not in the GenCr-ft organization yet. Ask your team lead to confirm your membership. |
The gft CLI did not install |
Re-run the installer for the CLI on its own:cd ~/.gft-studio/gcs-plt-tools && bash onboard.sh |
gft is installed but not found |
Close and reopen your terminal, or add it to your PATH:export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" |
Check your setup at any time with the built-in health check:
gft doctorStill stuck? Ask in #devops-support with the output of the failing command, or open an onboarding issue. A failure that needs a manual workaround is a bug in onboarding — please report it rather than working around it silently.
Use one of these exact workspace ids with --workspace.
Game client, authoritative server, PCG, authentication, persistence, and Aethel backlog work.
Platform CLI and architecture, studio governance, handbooks, security, legal, project management, and this website.
CI, onboarding automation, governance linters, shared GitHub Actions, and infrastructure.
Gem operations, agent blueprints, skills, prompts, communication protocols, and automation.
The one command runs in two phases: it first installs prerequisites and the studio's shared tooling — including the gft CLI — into ~/.gft-studio, then hands off to gft onboard, which clones the repositories for your selected workspace into a folder next to where you ran it and sets up your editor and AI assistants.