Getting started

Crew is a single Node.js app. It keeps everything in one SQLite file and talks to a model through Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible server.

Requirements

You need Node.js 22.13 or newer. Crew uses the built-in node:sqlite, so nothing has to be compiled.

You also need Ollama with a chat model and an embedding model:

ollama pull qwen2.5:3b
ollama pull nomic-embed-text

Any model that supports tool calling will work. On a laptop, qwen2.5:3b or llama3.2:3b is a reasonable start. If you have more RAM, try qwen2.5:7b or qwen3:8b.

Run it

npx @vefimov/crew

Open http://localhost:3000 and create your first agent.

To get the crew command, install the package globally:

npm i -g @vefimov/crew
crew start --open

Check your setup

crew doctor

✔ Node.js 22.14.0
✔ Database ~/.crew/crew.db
✔ ollama is reachable at http://127.0.0.1:11434
✔ Chat model qwen2.5:3b
✔ Embedding model nomic-embed-text

Your first agent

In the web UI, click New colleague, pick a template and press Create.

From the terminal:

crew agent create Artem --template backend --folder ~/code/my-api
crew chat Artem

Tell Artem something about yourself or your project. Close the chat and open it again tomorrow. Artem still knows.

Docker

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up

This starts Crew and Ollama side by side. Data lives in the crew-data volume.

From source

git clone https://github.com/valyefimov/crew
cd crew
pnpm install
pnpm dev        # API on :3001, web UI with hot reload on :5173