You'll need macOS, Linux, or Windows with WSL 2 enabled. The Shellway CLI requires no runtime dependencies — it ships as a single static binary.
Run the one-line installer. It downloads the latest release for your platform and places the sw binary in /usr/local/bin.
curl -fsSL https://getshellway.com/install.sh | sh
Or via Homebrew on macOS:
brew install shellway/tap/shellway
Verify the install:
sw --version
Go to getshellway.com/signup and create a free account. After signing in, navigate to Settings → API key and copy your key.
Run sw auth and paste your API key when prompted. The key is stored in ~/.shellway/credentials with permissions set to 600. It never leaves your machine unencrypted.
sw auth
> Enter your API key: ••••••••••••••••
✓ Authenticated as sandeep@example.com (Free plan)
Type sw in any terminal. Your existing shell session is wrapped — aliases, history, and env vars work exactly as before. You'll see a small indicator in your prompt showing Shellway is active.
sw
Shellway active · Free plan · 8k context · type ? to ask
Type ? followed by your question or instruction. The AI receives your current directory, recent shell output, and the question.
? show disk usage of the largest directories here
The AI will propose a command. Press Enter to approve and run it, or type e to edit it first.
@include filename in your question to include a specific file in the AI's context — for example: ? @include Dockerfile why is this build slow
Read the configuration reference to set context limits, restrict which directories the AI can see, or enable an audit log. For remote servers, see the SSH guide.