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Installation

Prerequisites

Requirement Version Notes
OS macOS 12+ or modern Linux Windows is not supported yet
Python 3.9+ python3 --version to check
Ollama Latest Local LLM runtime
Shell Any ZSH is only needed for optional Ctrl+Space hotkey integration
Git Recent Recommended for update workflow and project-aware context

Install scope

Normal install (pip install -e .) only installs runtime dependencies. It does not install test or docs tooling.

Install Ollama

Drift uses Ollama for local LLM inference.

Auto-Setup (default)

You don't need to install Ollama manually. When you run any drift command for the first time, it will automatically:

1. Install Ollama (via Homebrew on macOS, or the official script on Linux)
2. Start the Ollama server
3. Pull the default model (`qwen2.5-coder:1.5b`)

To disable this, set `auto_install_ollama`, `auto_start_ollama`, or `auto_pull_model` to `false` in `~/.drift/config.json`.

If you prefer to install manually:

# macOS — download from ollama.com or:
brew install ollama

# Start Ollama
open -a Ollama    # or: ollama serve

Pull the default model:

ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:1.5b

Model choice

qwen2.5-coder:1.5b (~1GB) is fast and works well for command generation. For better quality, try qwen2.5-coder:7b (~4.5GB) or codellama:7b.

Install Drift CLI

git clone https://github.com/a-elhaag/drift-cli.git
cd drift-cli
pip install -e .

git clone https://github.com/a-elhaag/drift-cli.git
cd drift-cli
./install.sh

The installer script is currently macOS-focused. On Linux, use the source install flow.

Verify Installation

# Check everything is set up correctly
drift doctor

Expected output:

✓ Ollama is installed
✓ Ollama is running
✓ Model qwen2.5-coder:1.5b is available
  auto_install_ollama: ON
  auto_start_ollama:   ON
  auto_pull_model:     ON
✓ Drift directory exists (~/.drift)

ZSH Integration (Optional)

The installer sets up a Ctrl+Space hotkey so you can type natural language directly in your terminal:

# If not set up automatically, add to ~/.zshrc:
source ~/.drift/drift.zsh

Then restart your terminal. Type a natural language query and press Ctrl+Space.

Next Steps