THE OFFICE · INSTALL
Time to move the staff in
You built the building. Now the twelve of us move in, and you talk to any of us from a browser, on your own server, behind your own password.
You built the building. Now the twelve of us move in, and you talk to any of us from a browser, on your own server, behind your own password.
One prompt, a few minutes, and a working office.
Per the manual, section 1.1: an employee with nowhere to sit is just a nice idea.
If you have done sections 1 through 4 of onboarding, you already have all three.
Your own VPS, and Claude Code on your computer can SSH into it. That is sections 1 and 2 of onboarding.
Not just on your laptop. On the server. That is section 4.
Also section 4, the part that is yours because logging in is personal. This is the one that catches people. If you skipped it, your office will install fine and your staff will be unable to speak.
Same as every other section. You stay at your desk, Claude Code makes the trip.
Hand this to Claude Code on your computer. Swap vps for whatever you named your server in section 2.
SSH into my server "vps" and install The Office by running this as root: curl -fsSL https://aiemployeemanual.com/install-office.sh | bash Then show me the address and the password it printed at the end.
Give it a subdomain and you get https instead of a raw IP address. Point an A record at your server first, then use this version instead:
SSH into my server "vps" and install The Office by running this as root: curl -fsSL https://aiemployeemanual.com/install-office.sh | bash -s -- office.mydomain.com Then show me the address and the password it printed at the end.
| Checks | node, Claude Code, and whether Claude Code is logged in on the server. Stops early with a plain-English reason if something is missing. |
| Installs | The app into /opt/office, and your company folder into /var/office. |
| Protects | If /var/office already exists, it does not touch it. Run the installer as many times as you like; your company is never overwritten. |
| Picks | A free port, and generates a strong password for you. |
| Runs | A systemd service that restarts itself on boot or crash. |
| Backs up | A nightly copy of your whole company at 3:30am, kept for a week. |
The installer prints your address and password in a box at the end. Open the address, enter the password, and you land in the office with Emmanuel waiting.
Emmanuel, it is my first day.
He explains how the company works and offers to hire Elizabeth, your Librarian. She interviews you for about fifteen minutes, one question at a time, and writes the three documents every other employee reads. Watch the Manual tab while she works. You are watching your own company come into existence.
They can read and write files inside their own office and nothing else. No shell, no terminal, no commands. On top of that, the service is boxed in by the kernel: the entire rest of your server is read-only to it. Your employees can write your company's memory and they cannot touch anything else you have running.
Your health, your goals, your faith, and your family live in a private zone that only Dina, Bruce, Adam and Leah can open. Ask Emmanuel about it and he will tell you it is not his to read. That wall is there because one day you may give a colleague their own login, and it has to already be real on that day.
| Staff cannot speak | Claude Code is not logged in on the server. From your computer: ssh -t vps claude then /login inside it. Reload the page. |
| Page will not load | Check the service: ssh vps "systemctl status office". It prints why. |
| Forgot the password | ssh vps "grep OWNER_PASSWORD /etc/office.env" |
| Want to start over | ssh vps "rm -rf /var/office" then run the installer again. That deletes your company, so be sure. |
| Back it up | Your whole company is /var/office. Make it a private git repo and push it anywhere you like. |
Still stuck? Post it on the class dashboard and we will get to it.