ByteRover CLI runs in WSL but requires your development environment to be fully within WSL:
Environment separation — Windows and WSL are separate environments. If you install ByteRover CLI in WSL, your coding agents must also access the WSL environment.
Performance — Keep project files in the WSL file system (~/projects) rather than /mnt/c/... for best performance.
Credential storage — ByteRover CLI stores credentials using encrypted file-based storage in ~/.local/share/brv/.
Navigate to your project and run brv to launch the TUI:
cd path/to/your/projectbrv
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Select a provider
On first launch, ByteRover immediately shows the provider selector. Choose any of the 18 supported external providers — just provide an API key (or use OAuth for OpenAI), no ByteRover account needed. ByteRover’s built-in LLM is also available with limited free usage, but requires a logged-in ByteRover account.
Selecting the ByteRover built-in provider when not logged in will prompt you to sign in via your browser. Third-party providers do not require a ByteRover account — only an API key. In brv webui, ByteRover is pinned at the top of the picker with a Native badge and the sign-in popup opens directly — no extra confirmation step.
Later, you can use this to switch to a different provider:
/providers
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Select a model
After selecting an external provider, ByteRover immediately prompts you to pick a model:To switch to a different model at any time:
/model
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Enter the main TUI
Once your provider and model are set, you’ll reach the main TUI with a welcome message:
brv providers switch <provider-id>brv model switch <model>
The ByteRover built-in provider requires authentication. Run brv login before using brv providers connect byterover — it opens your browser for OAuth by default. On CI or a remote shell, pass brv login --api-key <key> instead. Third-party providers only need an API key.
Ask your coding agent (Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, etc.) to curate context for you:
> Use brv curate command to curate essential contexts of this project's unit testing strategy. Make sure that unit tests run fast and run completely in memory.
Your coding agent will analyze the codebase and call brv curate automatically.
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Watch it in the TUI
You can follow the operation in progress in ByteRover’s TUI. Press Ctrl+O to expand the full response:
ByteRover organizes curated context into structured domains (e.g., testing, architecture, database) inside a local context tree at .brv/context-tree:To learn more, see Local Context Tree Structure.
The steps below are optional. They let you track changes to your context tree with Git-Semantic version control, and optionally sync to the cloud for team collaboration.
If you plan to join an existing team space, use brv vc clone instead — see Clone a remote space below. Cloning initializes version control automatically.
