Getting Started

Reinstate syncs AI coding agent sessions (and later: MCP configs, skills, settings) across your machines — encrypted, vendor-neutral, bring-your-own storage.

Status: repository and docs are live; the v0.1 CLI is under active development. Commands below describe the target UX. Follow ROADMAP.md for ship status.

Prerequisites

• Two (or more) machines you develop on (e.g. Windows desktop + MacBook)
• At least one supported agent installed (Claude Code and/or Codex first)
• An object-storage backend or WebDAV endpoint you control
  • Recommended: Cloudflare R2 (10GB free tier is plenty for sessions)

Install (target)

Binary (recommended)

# macOS / Linux (install script will ship with first release)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HarjjotSinghh/reinstate/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

# Or download from GitHub Releases
# https://github.com/HarjjotSinghh/reinstate/releases

From source

git clone https://github.com/HarjjotSinghh/reinstate.git
cd reinstate
make build
sudo make install   # installs reinstate + rein into your Go bin
rein version

CLI names: rein is the short alias (preferred day-to-day).
reinstate is the full command. Both invoke the same tool.

Go install

go install github.com/HarjjotSinghh/reinstate/cmd/reinstate@latest
ln -sf "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/reinstate" "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/rein"

First device (desktop)

# Interactive wizard: storage backend, passphrase, sync scope, path map
rein init

# Push local agent sessions (encrypted)
rein push

# Optional: inspect remote vs local
rein status

What init asks

1. Backend — R2 / S3 / GCS / S3-compatible / WebDAV
2. Credentials — stored locally with restricted permissions (never uploaded)
3. Encryption — passphrase (same passphrase = same key on every device)
4. Scope — sessions | config | all (start with sessions)
5. Path map — map project roots that differ across machines (C:\Users\you\work ↔ /Users/you/Projects)

Second device (laptop)

rein init
# Use the SAME backend + SAME passphrase
# Wizard verifies the passphrase can decrypt remote ciphertext

rein pull --dry-run   # always preview first
rein pull             # creates a timestamped local backup if needed

Then resume in your agent as usual:

claude --resume
# or
codex resume

The magic moment

Windows desktop (8h of sessions)  →  rein push
MacBook on the couch              →  rein pull
                                    →  claude --resume  # same thread

Path remapping rewrites embedded cwd / project slugs so resume finds the session even when absolute paths differ across OSes.

Daily workflow (Phase 2+)

# Manual
rein push
rein pull

# Automated (shell hooks — roadmap)
# pull on shell start, push on exit
rein hooks install

Scopes

rein push --scope sessions
rein push --scope config
rein push --scope all

Safety defaults

• Encryption is on — no plaintext cloud copies
• Credential files (auth.json, tokens) are never synced
• Pull never silent-overwrites: conflicts fork; backups are created first
• First pull on a new device defaults to dry-run confirmation

Next steps

• Architecture
• Security model
• Supported adapters
• Troubleshooting
• Comparison

Need help?

See SUPPORT.md.