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Quickstart

VIA ID ships as an Agent Skills package — a CLI plus a skill definition an AI coding agent can follow. No API keys, no account, no network calls required for the core flow.

Requirements​

  • Node.js 18 or later.
  • No account, no API key, no paid tier for the CLI itself.

Install​

Fastest — published to npm, no clone needed:

npx viaid-skill

Via the Agent Skills registry:

npx skills add SathiaAI/viaid

From a clone of the repo:

git clone https://github.com/SathiaAI/viaid.git
cd viaid
node scripts/install.js

All three auto-detect Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and Windsurf on your machine and install the skill into each one they find. Takes under a second — there's nothing to build or configure first.

Mint your first AgentID​

node bin/viaid.mjs init "my-agent"

This prints the agent's agent_id (a via_... hash) and where the badge file landed — the VIAID_WORK environment variable if you've set one, or ./viaid-work/ by default. Do this once per agent, not once per run. The badge file and its keystore (.keys/) should ship with the agent's deployment; losing them means you can no longer extend the log or rotate keys (the badge itself still verifies — you just can't add to it).

Log what the agent does​

node bin/viaid.mjs log <agent_id> "called payments API" claude-sonnet

This is the actual product: a shell call from the agent's own runtime, made after each action worth recording (an API call, a file write, a decision with real consequences) — not something you run once at build time. If the agent never calls log while it runs, the badge has nothing to attest beyond identity.

Verify before you ship​

node bin/viaid.mjs verify <agent_id>

Read the verdict before telling anyone the badge is good. See Introduction for what each verdict means.

See the whole flow end-to-end​

node bin/viaid.mjs demo

Runs the full two-sided flow (an agent gets badged, logs actions, gets evaluated, gets verified; then an org scans it, issues a pass, gates it, and — for the demo — revokes it) against a small sample agent it generates for you. Useful for seeing what a complete integration looks like before wiring your own.

Next steps​

  • Integrate your agent — the full phased flow for wiring VIA ID into a real agent's runtime.
  • CLI reference — every command, including the org-side commands (scan, gate) this quickstart doesn't cover.