Before you start

Installing Orcheri and installing an AI tool are separate steps. If you need Claude Code, Codex, Cursor Agent CLI, Antigravity's connection tool, OpenCode or GitHub Copilot CLI, use the official tool setup instructions in the Guide.

An approved Alpha place. The installer is only offered to approved accounts. Request a free place if you have not yet.
Windows 11, 64-bit. That is what the Alpha is tested on. Windows 10 will install it but has not been tested. ARM-based Windows is refused rather than run untested under emulation.
At least one of Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Antigravity, OpenCode or GitHub Copilot CLI, under your own account. You can install Orcheri first and sort the tools out afterwards — it will tell you what it found, and can install the provider's own release when you ask. How each one connects.
No administrator rights. Orcheri installs for your Windows user only.

1. Get the installer from your account

There is no public download link, and there is no third-party mirror. Sign in to your Orcheri account and the current Windows build is on the page, with its version, its size and its SHA-256 fingerprint. The download itself is access-checked each time, so a link you kept from yesterday will simply ask you to start again from your account.

The file name tells you what you have before you open anything: the version your account offered you, that it is the 64-bit Windows setup, and — while the Alpha carries no publisher signature — that it ends UNSIGNED. That suffix is deliberate, so the state of the build is visible at a glance and nobody can pass a different file off as an Orcheri release.

Compare the file name and fingerprint on your account page with what you downloaded before you run it. That comparison is worth more than any warning dialog: it is the one check that ties the file on your disk to the build we actually published to you.

To calculate the downloaded file's SHA-256 fingerprint in PowerShell, replace the example path with the actual installer you downloaded:

Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 -LiteralPath 'C:\path\to\your-downloaded-installer.exe' | Format-List

Compare the complete Hash value with the SHA-256 fingerprint on your account's download page; letter case does not matter. This command reads the file without running it. Microsoft's Get-FileHash reference explains the command. If the values differ, do not run the installer; contact support.

2. Your browser may ask about an uncommon download

It probably will, and it is not a sign that anything is wrong. Browsers judge a download partly by how many people have downloaded it before. A private Alpha build, downloaded by a small number of approved people, is by definition uncommon — so the browser has nothing to recognise.

Microsoft documents this directly: files that are unknown to Defender SmartScreen “show a warning to let the user know that the download doesn't have a known footprint and advise caution”, and adds that “not all unknown programs are malicious, and the unknown warning is intended to provide context and guidance for users who need it”. In Microsoft Edge the way through is the download's own menu — Microsoft names the path … | Keep | Show More | Keep anyway. Google Chrome may instead call the file suspicious or uncommon and offer to cancel or to keep it.

Take the browser's caution seriously and answer it with the check from step 1: keep the file only if you started the download from your own Orcheri account page and the name and fingerprint match it. If either does not match, delete the file and tell us.

3. Windows may name an unknown publisher

When you run the installer, Windows may say it prevented an unrecognised app from starting, or simply describe the publisher as unknown. The exact wording differs between Windows versions; the choice underneath it is usually a “More info” link that reveals a “Run anyway” button.

The reason is simple. A Windows publisher signature is a purchased, verified identity attached to a file, and the Alpha installer does not carry one yet. Reputation builds from signatures and download volume, and a private build shared with a small group has little of either. This page exists so the prompt arrives expected rather than alarming, and so you have a better check than a dialog: the file name and fingerprint on your own account page.

What this does not mean: it is not a virus warning, and Windows is not telling you the file is harmful. It is telling you it has no verified identity to show you. That is why the fingerprint on your account page matters — it is the identity check that is actually available to you today.

Two different signatures get confused here, so it is worth separating them. Orcheri does sign the small statement its update check reads — the one that names which version exists and where its page is. That is not a Windows publisher signature and does not vouch for the installer's bytes: only the fingerprint on the release page does that. Neither of them makes the other unnecessary.

Never turn off a Windows protection to install Orcheri. Not SmartScreen, not Defender, not an exclusion folder, not a policy setting. If your PC does not offer the ordinary “run anyway” choice, your Windows or your organisation has decided that, and we will not help you route around it. Stop there and read if something is blocked.

4. What the installer actually does

Short list, because it is a short list.

Installs whereYour own user folder — %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Orcheri. Nothing goes into Program Files and nothing asks for administrator rights.
AddsAn Orcheri entry in the Start menu. A desktop shortcut only if you tick that box; it is off by default.
Asks onceOne optional choice, Help improve Orcheri, unchecked unless you tick it. Leaving it empty changes nothing about installing, activation, updates or ordinary use, and you can change it later in Settings → Privacy & data. What it shares.
RegistersOne handler for your Windows user, so that after you sign in in the browser, the browser can hand you back to Orcheri. Uninstalling removes it.
Leaves aloneYour Orcheri profile — your Rooms, conversations and memory live in %APPDATA%\Orcheri, and the installer never touches it. Installing, updating and even uninstalling leave your work where it is.
Refuses toReplace or remove Orcheri while Orcheri is running from that installation. It waits for you to close it rather than closing your work for you.

Orcheri walks you through four steps in order, and names them so you know where you are: Sign in, Set up this PC, Your agents on this PC, Your first Room.

Sign in. Orcheri opens the sign-in page in your default browser and hands you back to the app when you finish. You never paste a token anywhere. Your Orcheri account is separate from your AI tools' accounts, and signing in here signs you in to none of them.
Set up this PC. This is the activation step, and it is deliberately separate. It links this installation to your Orcheri account for the Alpha and links nothing else — your Rooms and your teammates' work stay on this PC. You give the PC a name, which is how it appears in your account. Downloading, installing or opening an email never sets up a PC.
Your agents on this PC. Orcheri reports which of Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Antigravity, OpenCode and GitHub Copilot CLI it found and helps with whatever setup each still needs. You can also continue without one and come back to it.
Your first Room. Name it, accept or edit the starter team Orcheri suggests, choose whether it has a project folder, and open it. The practical guide takes it from here.

Setting up needs a sign-in from the last few minutes, so if you left the app sitting open it may ask you to sign in again first — that freshness requirement is the point, not a bug. If you were invited by email rather than approved in your account, the same screen accepts your invitation code behind Use invitation code instead; an invitation is for one email address, works for seven days, and is never resent automatically.

Install Orcheri on as many of your own PCs as you like and set each one up. Each keeps its own Rooms — signing in never uploads or syncs them. Your account lists your PCs, and you can remove any of them from there.

If something is blocked or goes wrong

The download did not start, or the link stopped working

Start it again from your account page. Each download is checked against your access at the moment you ask for it, so a fresh start is the fix rather than a workaround.

Your organisation's policy blocks the file

On a managed PC, an administrator can remove the “run anyway” choice entirely — Microsoft documents that this bypass is configurable by policy for exactly this reason. That is your organisation's decision and we will not route around it. Two honest options: install Orcheri on a PC you administer yourself, or ask us for help and tell us what Windows showed. Do not ask an administrator to weaken a protection for an Alpha build.

“This app can't run on your PC”

Almost always an ARM-based Windows PC, which the installer refuses on purpose rather than running untested under emulation. Orcheri needs 64-bit Intel or AMD Windows today.

Orcheri says this version was withdrawn

Occasionally a build is withdrawn — pulled back because something was wrong with it. Its downloads stop, and setting up a PC on it is refused rather than allowed to go quietly wrong. Sign in to your account, take the current version from there, and install it over the top. Your Rooms are untouched by any of this.

Your antivirus removed the file

Do not add an exclusion. Tell us what the product was and exactly what it reported, and we will look at it — a false positive on an unsigned build is something we want to know about and can act on.

The installer says Orcheri is still running

Close Orcheri completely and run it again. Orcheri keeps working while minimised, so check that it is genuinely closed rather than tucked away.

Sign-in opened the browser and nothing came back

A sign-in waits ten minutes and then stops, so start it again from Orcheri rather than reusing the browser tab — a sign-in that was not started from this Orcheri window is refused on purpose. If no browser opens at all, check that Windows has a default browser set. If Windows cannot protect a stored credential on your PC, Orcheri says so plainly: your sign-in then lasts only for that session and you sign in again next time.

Orcheri says it paused the work and will not start more

Almost always your PC's access check rather than anything you did. Orcheri works offline for a while and then needs to reach the service again; the banner tells you which case it is and offers the one action that fixes it — Check now when you have been offline, or setting your Windows clock right if it is running behind. More on the paused-work cases.

Nothing above fits

If you can sign in, write from your account — the conversation stays with your account there. If you cannot sign in at all, the Orcheri contact form exists for exactly that case. Help and contact has both routes. Nobody on the Orcheri team will ever ask you for your password, an invitation code or a sign-in code.

Updating, and removing Orcheri

Orcheri tells you when a newer Alpha version is available to your account. After you open it, Orcheri checks for an eligible update, and when there is one an announcement appears at a calm moment — never over a question waiting for you, running work or an open dialog. It shows the version you have, the new one and what's new, with two choices: Update now and Skip for now, which lasts until you quit.

Settings → Updates is always there too. It shows this version, its channel, any available version, when Orcheri last checked, and the release notes, with Update now and Check for updates.

Update now opens your secure download page in your browser. The download is checked against your access, as on your account page.
Quit Orcheri, then run the new installer over the top. Compare its name and fingerprint first, as in step 1.
Open Orcheri again. Your Rooms, memory and decisions are exactly as you left them. You do not uninstall first.

Orcheri never downloads or replaces itself silently. If the version you have was withdrawn, the same places say so and offer Get the supported version.

To remove Orcheri: Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Orcheri → Uninstall. That removes the program and the sign-in handler and leaves your Orcheri profile in %APPDATA%\Orcheri untouched, so reinstalling finds your Rooms again. If you want that data gone too, delete that folder yourself — deliberately, because nothing else will.