Lesson 3: Installing BxAgents
Install BoxLang, bx-ai and BxAgents, and verify the bxAgents command works.
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Installing BxAgents
BxAgents is a BoxLang module. It needs three things on the machine that runs it:
- A BoxLang runtime.
- The
bx-aiBoxLang module (BxAgents generates code that calls it - it doesn't vendor it). - BxAgents itself.
Follow the official BoxLang installation guide.
The quick installer also sets up ~/.boxlang/bin on your PATH, which is where
module-provided executables (like BxAgents' own bxAgents command) land.
install-bx-module bx-ai
install-bx-module bx-agents
This fetches both modules into your BoxLang modules directory (~/.boxlang/modules
by default, or boxlang_modules/ with --local).
bxAgents --version
bxAgents --help
--help lists all 12 verbs (new, build, test, serve, chat, invoke,
package, deploy, inspect, clean, hash-password, doctor) with a one-line
summary of each. You'll use most of them in this course.
The bxAgents command
BxAgents declares a native executable in its box.json:
"boxlang": { "moduleName": "bxagents", "executable": "bxAgents" }
The installer turns that into a bxAgents wrapper script on your PATH. bxAgents new my-agent --model=openai/gpt-5 is shorthand for the longer, always-equivalent form:
boxlang module:bxagents new my-agent --model=openai/gpt-5
This course uses the short bxAgents <verb> form throughout.
Optional, for later lessons
serve(Lesson 8) additionally needs the standaloneboxlang-miniserverbinary onPATH.deploy'sftp/sftptargets (Lesson 20) need thebx-ftpmodule (install-bx-module bx-ftp) - a genuine runtime dependency, not vendored, same asbx-ai.
Neither is required to follow along with build, chat, test, package,
inspect, clean or new.
See Installation for the full reference page.