1. First steps
1.2 The first start
Where to put the kit, the “Welcome” page, which components to choose and what happens while they download.
In the app: «Tools»
In short
- Put the Atollo program in an empty folder, where you want to keep the kit, and open it.
- The first time, the “Welcome” page appears: choose the language and, if needed, proxy and certificates, then agents and languages, and press “Install”. Nothing is downloaded before “Install”.
- The components download in the background from the official sources: you can already use the app while they arrive.
- Nothing is final: everything can be added or removed later from the Tools page.
1. Where to put the kit
The kit lives where its executable is: the folder that contains it becomes the “kit folder”, and that is where projects and data will be created. So choose an empty folder with a simple name, for example D:\Atollo on a USB stick or an external disk, or C:\Atollo on the PC's disk.
- On Windows the executable is called Atollo.exe, or Atollo-<version>-win32-x64.exe as you download it from the releases page. On macOS it is Atollo.app, on Linux an AppImage file.
- Space: the choice suggested at the first start takes about 1.8 GB. Each extra language or version adds space, and projects with their dependencies grow over time: on a USB stick it is best to have at least 16 GB free.
- Speed: an external SSD is much faster than a cheap USB stick. The kit works on both, but installing packages with npm or Composer on a slow USB stick takes patience.
Which file system to choose
On Windows the best format is NTFS: it is the only one that lets the kit protect the folders holding passwords (databases, sign-ins) so that only your user can read them, and use links instead of copies. On exFAT and FAT32 the kit works, but without that protection; FAT32 also does not accept files larger than 4 GB. If you use the same USB stick on Windows, macOS and Linux, exFAT is the format all of them can read and write: in that case keep in mind that links become copies.
The Settings › “The kit” page shows the disk the kit is on: file system and type (fixed, removable, network).
2. The “Welcome” page
At the first start, instead of the usual pages, the “Welcome” tab appears, with the title “Welcome to Atollo”. It explains that agents and languages will be downloaded from the official sources, checked and placed in the kit's data folder, with no installation and no administrator rights.
At the top there are two groups of settings, saved by themselves as you change them (as on the Settings page, where you will find them again): “Before you start”, with “Language”, “Theme” and “Automatic update”, and “Network”, with proxy, additional certificates and local network. Fill in “Network” only if your network goes through a proxy or inspects HTTPS traffic: since nothing is downloaded before “Install”, the very first downloads will use them too.
Below is the list of components, split into eight kinds (each with its description), with a search box and an index on the left. Each row has a checkbox, the logo, the name, a description, the size and some tags that say what it needs or what it is for.
| Type | What it contains | What to choose |
|---|---|---|
| System and editor | The editor, PowerShell 7 (the kit's console), GitHub CLI and Git. Below, the PC requirements. | The editor, PowerShell 7 and GitHub CLI are always installed, together with the others, when you press “Install”: their checkboxes are locked. Git is your choice, and it comes anyway with Claude Code and Pi. |
| AI agents | Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity and Pi. | Optional. Keep the ones you have an account for; they require a subscription or an API key from the provider. Pi is not ticked: tick it if you want an agent on the local models, with no account. |
| Local models | llama.cpp, the server of the language models on the PC. | Optional and not ticked. It also installs itself the first time you start the server, from the AI page, Local models pane, where you download the models (many GB). |
| Languages | All languages and runtimes: Python, Node.js, PHP, Java, Go, .NET, Rust, Ruby, the C/C++ compiler and the others. Python, Node.js, PHP, Go and Java can have several versions; the others stay at the latest. | The ones you use. Others can be added when needed. |
| Development tools | uv, pnpm and yarn, CMake and Ninja, Android SDK, Typst, TinyTeX: a single version, always the latest. | Usually nothing: the kit installs them by itself when a project or an agent asks for them. |
| Web server | Apache and Caddy, for the projects' sites and the shared Web Servers. | The one your projects use; Apache is already in the suggested choice. |
| Databases | MySQL, MongoDB, SQLite; in the browser phpMyAdmin and mongo-express. | Only if you need them. MySQL is also installed the first time the server starts. |
The suggested choice includes Claude Code, Codex and Antigravity (not Pi or llama.cpp), Python, PHP with Apache and the “System and editor” components, Git included. About 1.8 GB in all. When you tick a component, the kit also ticks the ones it needs (for example Kotlin brings Java with it, phpMyAdmin brings PHP and MySQL).
- In “Before you start” choose the language and, if you like, the theme; if you are behind a company proxy, also fill in “Network”.
- Untick what does not interest you and add what you use.
- Press “Install” at the bottom. There is no confirmation: the choice is saved and the download starts right away.
- The app leaves the “Welcome” page and shows the normal pages. The download continues in the background: you see it in the status bar at the bottom and in the “Activity” panel.
3. What happens while it downloads
- DownloadFrom the manufacturer's official source, over HTTPS.
- CheckCompares the file's fingerprint with the published one; if they do not match, it discards it.
- ExtractInto a temporary working folder.
- Set upPuts the program in data\apps and checks that it responds.
Every component goes through these four steps. If a download fails (no network, company proxy, manufacturer's site unreachable) the kit tries three times; if it still does not work, the row shows the error and, when possible, a box to download the file with the browser and hand it to the kit.
The details on sources and checks are in Where the tools come from (8.4); if you are behind a company proxy, read Company network: proxy, certificates, local network (6.3) first.
Under the hood
- The choice of components is saved in data\app\components.txt, one line per component (id=1 chosen, id=0 not).
- At the first start nothing is downloaded, not even the required components, until you press “Install”: this way the proxy and certificates chosen on the page already apply to the first downloads. From the following starts the kit checks that the required components are there and reinstalls them by itself if they are missing, without asking.
- If the first start is interrupted, the “Welcome” page does not come back on reopening if the choice has already been saved: you pick up from Tools, where the rows not downloaded show the state “not present” or “error”.