Quick Start

60 seconds. From clone to a multi-agent legal system running on your laptop.

Disclaimer. Lavern is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. The "agentic law firm" framing used in places throughout these docs is an analogy for the software's architecture, not a description of what Lavern is. Lavern is software that assists with document analysis and legal design. You use it at your own risk. Always have qualified legal counsel verify anything that matters before relying on it.

Run it locally

You need Node.js 20+ and npm.

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/AnttiHero/lavern.git
cd lavern

# 2. One-shot setup — installs deps, picks a provider, writes .env
npm run setup

npm run setup walks you through:

• Installing root + viz/ (dashboard) dependencies
• Picking an inference provider (see below)
• Writing .env (mode 0600), backing up any existing one
• Creating data/, audit-logs/, .shem/
• Optionally launching the dev server at the end

When it finishes, the API server runs on http://localhost:3000 and serves the dashboard from the same port.

Pick a provider

The setup prompts you to choose one:

Provider	What it is	Cost	Needs
Anthropic Cloud (default, recommended)	Claude via Anthropic API. Best capability. The agents, debate, and verification loop were tuned for Claude.	Paid per call	sk-ant-... key from console.anthropic.com
Local (Ollama)	On-device inference via gemma3:4b (or any model you pull). Nothing leaves the host. Quality drops noticeably vs Claude — use for offline tinkering and privacy demos, not serious matters.	$0	Ollama installed; setup will offer to brew install (macOS) or curl | sh (Linux). ~3 GB model pull.
Mistral (EU Sovereign)	EU-hosted inference for GDPR-bound matters.	Paid per call	Key from console.mistral.ai

To change provider later: edit .env or re-run npm run setup.

Hacking on the dashboard (hot reload)

If you're editing viz/ and want Vite's hot reload, run two processes instead:

# Terminal 1 — API server on :3000
npm run serve:dev

# Terminal 2 — dashboard on :5173 with hot reload
cd viz && npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173. You should see Lavern's landing page within a few seconds.

⚠️ Add your Anthropic key to actually process documents

Demo mode gets you the full UI — landing page, auth, Clawern dashboard, agent profiles, the works — but it cannot run real engagements without an API key.

1. Run npm run setup (or copy .env.example to .env manually — setup runs on first launch).
2. Choose your provider and set the matching key (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... or MISTRAL_API_KEY=...).
3. Restart Terminal 1 (npm run serve:dev).

EU teams: set LAVERN_PROVIDER=mistral and MISTRAL_API_KEY=... to route every LLM call — orchestrator, agents, debate, verification, briefing analyser, partner-mode chat, agent-builder personality, Clawern processing — through Mistral instead of Anthropic. The Anthropic-streaming paths (briefing interview, partner consult) fall back to a one-shot completion that the route then SSE-emits as a single chunk, so the UI stays identical; no document content reaches api.anthropic.com when Mistral is the configured provider.

Verify the install

npx lavern doctor          # Health check: Node version, deps, ports, .env, API key
npx lavern --help          # Usage banner + option list

doctor runs a first-90-seconds preflight: Node version, native sqlite binding, dashboard deps, ports 3000 and 5173, .env state, and (informational) whether ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set. If anything is red, fix it before starting the servers.

First engagement (CLI)

A short, fabricated SaaS Terms of Service ships in samples/. With your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set:

npx lavern samples/sample-terms-of-service.txt --workflow review

The team picks itself, opens a debate, runs three-layer verification, and lands at a gate before the final deliverable.

First engagement (dashboard)

1. From the landing page, click Step In.
2. Upload samples/sample-terms-of-service.txt (or paste its contents). Bring your own contract if you prefer.
3. Answer the 3–5 intake questions in the Briefing chat.
4. Accept the suggested team and workflow, or customize.
5. Watch the Working view. Agents analyze, post findings, debate, and resolve disputes in real time.
6. When a gate fires, approve or reject the team's critical findings.
7. Read the Delivery view: the user-facing document, the structured findings, the scorecard, and the audit trail.

Who are you? Where to start.

You're a…	First move
Contracts lawyer reviewing one document	The dashboard. Run npm run setup, pick Local or Anthropic. Briefing → Quick Counsel is the fastest path.
GC managing a portfolio of contracts	Clawern. Point Lavern at a folder; it watches, reviews, and surfaces critical findings. See Clawern (autonomous mode) below.
Engineer integrating Lavern into your stack	The API. npm run serve:dev, then hit POST /api/sessions. See the API section in README.
Researcher / academic / OSS contributor	The agents themselves. Open src/agents/prompts/ — 67 markdown prompts, every one editable. Fork a workflow in src/workflows/templates/. No build step on the prompts.
Lawyer-Twitter / curious onlooker	Watch the demo at lavern.ai, then come back here when you have 60 seconds.

Clawern (autonomous mode)

Drop documents in a folder. Lavern reviews them overnight. Critical findings hit your phone.

npm run dev -- claw init       # 5-minute interactive setup
npm run dev -- claw validate   # Check configuration
npm run dev -- claw start      # Start watching
npm run dev -- claw pause      # Pause processing
npm run dev -- claw resume     # Resume processing

You can also run the API server and Claw together: npm run dev -- --serve --claw.

Heartbeat every 30 minutes · Telegram bot · email alerts · weekly digest · change detection on re-review · precedent board (institutional memory across documents) · hybrid local+frontier processing · multi-client isolation · audit trail · Prometheus metrics.

For maximum-confidentiality engagements, run claw start --ethical — Mistral EU only, all docs treated as confidential, conservative risk posture.

What you're installing

Lavern is a multi-agent system, not a single tool. When it boots:

• A team of 67 agents is staffed (you pick the team, or accept the default).
• A soul — voice, principles, style — shapes how the team communicates.
• A debate protocol is enforced; specialists challenge each other before findings ship.
• A human gate fires before critical decisions. The system raises concerns; you decide.
• An audit bundle ships with every engagement: the user-facing deliverable plus structured findings, debate resolutions, verification results, and a cost log.

Customize:

• Personality — edit SOUL.md (CLI/Claw mode), or set it in My Page → Lavern's Soul (browser).
• Default team — select agents on the Team view; save as a preset.
• New agents — drop a markdown prompt in src/agents/prompts/, register the profile + definition. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

What's in the box

67 agent prompts · 21 MCP tools · 9 workflows · 5 legal datasets (CUAD · MAUD · ACORD · UNFAIR-ToS · LEDGAR) · 3 inference providers (Local Ollama · Anthropic · Mistral EU) · 1,677 tests across 105 files.

Full reference: README.md · architecture deep-dive at lavern.ai/architecture/.

Stuck?

• npm install fails on better-sqlite3 → you need a working C/C++ toolchain. macOS: xcode-select --install. Linux: apt install build-essential. Windows: WSL2 is easier than native.
• Ollama daemon not reachable → setup pings http://localhost:11434. Start it with ollama serve (or open Ollama.app on macOS), then re-run npm run setup.
• Dashboard loads but shows "Connection lost" → the API server didn't start, or stopped. Check the terminal where you ran npm run dev -- --serve (or npm run serve:dev). The dashboard talks to it over WebSocket.
• An engagement won't start with no provider configured → Lavern boots in demo mode (UI works, processing doesn't) until .env is filled in. Re-run npm run setup or set LAVERN_PROVIDER plus the matching key (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or MISTRAL_API_KEY) directly in .env.
• Agents are slow, or seem to stall → Lavern auto-retries cloud API calls on transient 429/500s with exponential backoff (1s → 2s → 4s). Watch the terminal logs for retry events. Sustained retries mean your API key is rate-limited. On Local, slow generation usually means the model is CPU-only — check Ollama is using your GPU.
• I want to try without installing → there is no hosted demo right now. Watch the video at lavern.ai; the install above is 60 seconds.

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Found a bug? Open an issue. Want to contribute? See CONTRIBUTING.md. Security concern? See SECURITY.md.