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Once Helix is installed and booted, you drive it in plain English. This page walks the shortest path from nothing to a first verdict.
Not installed yet? Set up the Plugin or the Standalone binary first.

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Start something new

Begin at Spec. Describe the agent you want — in this walkthrough, a support-triage agent:
Helix runs a guided interview and emits agentspec.yaml, the definition of the agent. Then build it:
Helix implements the spec into your framework or harness and stops at a working agent.

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Improve one you already have

If you already have an agent and some traces, go straight to Evaluate:
Helix derives success criteria from the runs, scores each, and returns a verdict. Where it flags failures, ask why:
Diagnose returns ranked remedies. Nothing is applied until you approve; when you accept one, Helix applies it and re-runs the loop so you can confirm it helped.

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You’re done when

  • The Helix dashboard renders, and
  • *spec (or just asking for a spec) starts the interview.
A full *evaluate needs a subject and its traces — that’s the loop proper, above.
Prefer commands to prose? Every stage has a shortcut: *spec, *build, *evaluate, *diagnose, *optimize. They’re alternatives to natural language, not requirements. See Commands.