Starting and signing in

The very first thing tCode does in a folder it has not seen before is ask whether you trust it, since from that point on it can read files, edit files, and run commands there. This is a one-time check per folder, not a prompt you answer on every launch, and it exists specifically for the case of pointing tCode at something you downloaded or cloned without having reviewed it yet.

Signing in follows immediately if you are not already logged in: tCode opens auth.artfical.com in your browser and asks for a short code back in the terminal to link the two. This is the same device-code pattern many CLI tools use, and once complete, the session is remembered on that machine.

You will not be asked again on that machine unless you explicitly run /logout, or unless you are setting tCode up somewhere new. See Accounts and API access for how this session relates to your regular tAI account.

The folder-trust check and the sign-in step are independent of each other: you can be already signed in on a machine and still see the trust prompt the first time you point tCode at a new folder, since trust is tracked per folder, not per account or per machine as a whole.

Neither step requires anything beyond a normal web browser and a few seconds of attention; there is no separate account to create, no password to choose, and no configuration file to hand-edit before tCode is usable in a new folder.