Reference

Install ROAM

Start with the desktop app or CLI path, then initialize a local project and connect the harnesses you use.

Install via npm (recommended)

npm is the primary install path today. It works on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Requires Node.js 18 or later.

npm install -g @veritera.ai/roam

Confirm it works:

roam --help

That is the entire install. ROAM does not auto-launch a daemon, does not register a service, and does not write anywhere outside your home directory until you run roam init.

What ROAM creates on your machine

Until you run roam init, the binary is inert — installing it writes nothing else to your machine.

Once you initialize a project, ROAM creates ~/ROAM/<session-name>/ by default. Developers can override that with an explicit path containing / or \.

Inside that session, ROAM creates a .roam/ directory. That directory holds the project canon, journals, agent registrations, and a config file. Local configuration lives inside that session directory. If you choose to store harness credentials for a workflow, ROAM keeps them in the project's local ROAM state with owner-only file permissions. The daemon's socket lives in the same local directory.

ROAM never writes to system directories and never installs a launchd / systemd service. The daemon communicates over a local socket. If you open the optional browser dashboard, it binds to localhost. The model traffic still belongs to the harnesses you connect: Claude Code, OpenAI, Cursor, local models, and the providers you already use.

Uninstall

Three steps, in this order:

# 1. Stop the daemon if it is running.
roam daemon stop

# 2. Remove the global npm package.
npm uninstall -g @veritera.ai/roam

# 3. Remove user state (optional).
rm -rf ~/.roam
# Per-project state lives in ./.roam inside each project; remove if desired.

That is the entire footprint. There is nothing else to clean up.

Platform builds

ROAM supports the major desktop and server platforms. The public download page offers desktop builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux, and the npm CLI path above stays available for terminal-first setup.

macOS — Apple Silicon and Intel builds.
Windows — x64 build.
Linux — x64 build.
CLI — npm install path for terminal-first setup.

All paths resolve to the same local operating layer: your machine, your keys, your harnesses.