Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ — nodejs.org
• npm (bundled with Node.js)
• OpenAI API key — needed for all AI agent features

Install dependencies

# Clone or extract the project
cd autoreg
 
# Install npm packages
npm install
 
# Install Playwright's Chromium browser
npx playwright install chromium

Configure your API key

Create a .env file in the project root:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o-mini

Available models (can also be switched in-app):

The OPENAI_MODEL env var sets the default. The chat composer’s model selector overrides it at runtime without a restart.

Security: In production the key is encrypted with OS keychain (Mac) / DPAPI (Windows) and stored in config.json. On first launch without a .env file, AutoReg shows a prompt to enter your key — it is encrypted immediately and never stored in plaintext.

Start in development mode

npm run dev

This starts the Vite dev server on http://localhost:5173 and launches the Electron window with hot-reload.

Build a production installer

npm run build
npm run package:electron

Output is written to release/:

• release/AutoReg Setup.exe (Windows installer)
• release/AutoReg.dmg (Mac disk image)

Log files

All console.* output is written to a rotating log file:

Max 100 MB per file; archived with _N suffix on rotation.

Checklist

• Node.js 18+ installed
• npm install completed without errors
• npx playwright install chromium completed
• .env file with OPENAI_API_KEY set
• npm run dev launches Electron window