kunchenguid/firstmate: README-based editorial guide

kunchenguid/firstmate describes itself in the README as "Talk to one agent. Ship with a crew.". This article keeps to facts that can be checked in the repository. Stars, forks, and promotional badges are signals of attention, not proof of quality. Under "What it is", the README says: You can run one coding agent easily. But the moment you want three project tasks done in parallel - fixes, investigations, plans, audits - you become a tab-juggler: babysitting sessions, copy-pasting context between repos, forgetting which. That establishes the project's stated boundary, not a production test.

The README's "Features" section gives a useful starting point for deciding whether the project fits: A visible crew - every crewmate works in its own tmux window, experimental herdr/zellij tab, cmux workspace, or Orca terminal you can watch or type into; the first mate reconciles.. If that problem is not yours, popularity is a poor reason to adopt it. Project names, commands, and component names are kept as written so a reader can return to the primary source without guessing at terminology. Another checkable README item is: One liaison - you talk only to the first mate; it dispatches, supervises, escalates only real decisions, and reports plain outcomes.. It can shape a first test, but it does not replace testing in the intended environment.

The operating model is spread across sections such as "What it is". The source evidence includes: firstmate is not a model, not a harness, not a skill, not an MCP server, and not a CLI. firstmate is an agent distro for running a crew of agents.. This article does not turn missing architecture, performance, or security details into claims. A real deployment still needs a look at the repository layout, configuration files, and release history.

Start installation from the README's documented entry point. A command that can be checked in the source is: gh auth login git clone https://github.com/kunchenguid/firstmate cd firstmate When the README contains no runnable command, this article does not invent one. Open its "Features" section and confirm system dependencies, default ports, and first-run initialization before using a public server.