Getting started

VIDA runs on a developer's own workstation. It needs nothing hosted: a local orchestrator, a HUD in your browser, and the tools you already have.

What it runs on

• Node.js 22.6 or later, and git.
• Desktop Chrome for the HUD. Speech input uses the browser's own recognition, which other browsers do not provide in a usable form.
• The Claude Code CLI, signed in. Background tasks run on it, with its own model and billing.
• Optionally, keys for a conversation model and a voice. With none at all VIDA still runs: stub adapters give a placeholder reply and a tone instead of a voice, which is enough to see the whole loop work.

VIDA is developed and run day to day on Windows; its test suite runs there in CI.

Start it

npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 in Chrome, hold space, speak and release. Or switch onalways listening and say "VIDA" instead. Always listening is off until you turn it on, because it sends everything said near the machine to the browser's speech service.

To hear a real voice, copy .env.example to .env and fill in the model and voice keys it names. Nothing else changes when you do.

Connect your work

Your repositories

VIDA works across every repository in its project registry: each project's name, its checkout on this machine and its remote. Tasks, reviews, health checks and the "what's live" panel all read their paths from there and nowhere else.

Each repository gets a dev branch the first time something needs it. Everything lands there;main only moves when you say promote.

Linear

1. Register VIDA once as a private OAuth application in your Linear workspace, with a loopback callback URL.
2. Put the client id and secret in VIDA's gitignored secrets/ folder, never in config or the repository.
3. In the HUD's apps tab, press connect Linear. That asks for read access only.Allow writing is a second, separate consent.
4. Set VIDA_TRACKER=linear so tasks can start from issue keys and the autopilot has a backlog to read.

Calendar

Google Calendar connects the same way, from the same tab. At read access VIDA can only look: what is on, free time, deadlines. The tools that change your calendar only exist once you grant writing.

Your first hour

• "What's on today?"
• "Pick up LED-142." (any issue key from your tracker)
• "How's that going?" and watch its live feed in the background panel.
• "What's waiting on me?"
• Open the review tab, read the change, then: "Land it."
• "Remind me to tell Dana about the export fix."

The workflow page explains what happens at each of those steps.

What it costs

VIDA is a local program, so the costs are the model and voice providers you choose and the Claude Code usage your tasks run up. The HUD shows spend as it happens, per turn and per session, attributed to the tool that caused it.