Quickstart

Each step shows a prompt for your agent. If you'd rather run the commands yourself, choose the Terminal tab.

Requirements

Before you start, you'll need an agent. This guide focuses on agents that can run commands in a terminal (e.g., Claude Code or Codex) on macOS or Linux with Node.js 20 or later, but any agent can connect to Catena, including apps like Claude and ChatGPT and agents that run in the cloud. You'll find a setup guide for each one under Integrations.

Give your agent this prompt

First, paste this prompt into your agent:

Read https://catena.com/llms.txt and connect yourself to my Catena account.

npm i -g @catena/cli
catena link --name "Quickstart agent"

From there, the agent installs the CLI, reads catena guide, and runs catena link. The command prints an approval link and a short code, then exits, and the agent sends you the link. The link is valid for 15 minutes. If it expires, catena link will print a new one.

Next, open the link and sign in. If you're new to Catena, you can sign up from the same link and finish setup there: accept the terms, set up a passkey, and name your organization.

On the approval screen, check the code and click Continue. Then:

Under Organization, choose the organization tagged Sandbox. If you don't have a sandbox yet, open the organization menu at the top of the console's sidebar, choose Switch to sandbox, and then open the agent's link again (only an admin can create the sandbox).
Name the agent, and keep the Default Policy that Assign policy selects.
Click Approve link.

Fund the sandbox account

Before the agent can pay anyone, the sandbox account needs some test money. In the console, click Deposit. In the sandbox, Deposit requests test USDC on Base Sepolia (in a live organization it shows deposit instructions instead), and you can request test USDC once an hour.

Once the request goes through, ask your agent for the balance:

What is the balance of my Catena sandbox account?

catena accounts list
catena accounts balance acct_...

accounts balance returns .balances.total and .balances.available, and we recommend sizing a payment against .balances.available.

Make a test payment

Now that the account has funds, let's send some of them. The sandbox has one counterparty, Catena, and the Default Policy lets the agent pay it:

Send $1.00 to the Catena counterparty on-chain and tell me the status.

catena counterparties list
catena send --rail cpr_... --amount 1.00 --method on-chain

The agent finds the Catena counterparty's wallet rail (its rails[].id, which starts with cpr_) and sends to it. The send returns an intent.

See it in the console

Congrats on your agent's first payment! Activity in the console lists each action the agent took, and the Transactions tab lists money movement. The agent's own page shows its activity and its policy.

Next steps

From here, consider the following:

Test each outcome in the sandbox, including approvals, denials, blocks, and retries.
Write a policy for real work, with the accounts, counterparties, and limits the agent needs, and which payments need your approval.
Connect an agent that runs somewhere else, such as a desktop app, a cloud sandbox, or a deployed service.
Once your live organization is set up, pay a vendor invoice with an approval step.