Installation

How to install Composez and configure your first project.

Prerequisites

Python 3.9+
Git (for version control integration)
An API key for your preferred LLM provider (Claude, OpenAI, etc.)

Install Composez

Composez is distributed as a fork of Aider. Clone the repository and install:

git clone https://github.com/kmewhort/aider.git composez
cd composez
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate    # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e .

Configure Your API Key

Set your API key as an environment variable. For Claude (recommended):

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

For OpenAI:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

You can also place these in a .env file in your project directory.

Create a New Project

mkdir my-novel && cd my-novel
git init
composez

On first launch, Composez will:

Create the .composez configuration file with default settings
Set up the db/core/ directory with a default style guide
Create db/core/metadata.yml with the project name and git author
Generate a CLAUDE.md file so other AI tools understand your project

Optional: Install Vale for Prose Linting

Composez uses Vale for prose style checking. Install it for /lint support:

pip install vale

On first lint, Composez will create a .vale.ini with fiction-friendly defaults and download the required style packages (write-good, proselint, ai-tells).

Optional: Install Export Dependencies

For DOCX and EPUB export:

pip install python-docx    # For /export docx
pip install ebooklib        # For /export epub

Markdown export works without additional dependencies.

Verify Your Installation

composez --version

Then start Composez and try:

> /ls

You should see an empty narrative structure and the default db entries.