Create a project¶

A project links a directory on your machine to an objective on the control node. There are two ways to start one — create a new project, or clone an existing one.

Create from your code¶

From inside the repo you want to optimize:

cd my-research-repo
autolab init

init first asks whether to use this directory's code as the source, then collects the research goal:

Path	It asks for
Using your code	name, run command, objective, env setup, constraints, termination
Empty project	name, objective, constraints, termination

The slug is the slugified name (my-research-repo → alice/my-research-repo), deduped to …-v2 if taken. The project is created live-but-paused: it appears on the dashboard with the agent paused, so you can review settings before it spends anything. Every project starts on your AutoLab platform key.

Start empty¶

No baseline code? Let the agent write it from your objective:

autolab init --empty --objective "maximize MMLU score"

The orchestrator fills in the run and setup commands once there's code to run.

Non-interactive¶

Every prompt has a flag, so an agent or CI job can create a project headlessly with -y:

autolab init -y \
  --name "nanochat" \
  --objective "minimize val loss" \
  --run "python train.py" \
  --prep "uv sync" \
  --constraints "keep params < 1B" \
  --max-cost 50 \
  --start

See every flag in the CLI reference.

Go live with `start`¶

init leaves the agent paused. When the settings look right (autolab settings), take the project live:

autolab start

This seeds main from your code and starts the agent. The first start takes the project live; afterwards it resumes the agent after a pause. Pass --start to init to go live immediately.

Clone & resume an existing project¶

To work on a project that already exists — yours or one you collaborate on:

autolab projects                 # list projects you can access
autolab clone alice/nanochat     # clone into ./nanochat
cd nanochat
autolab status                   # where the project (and you) are
autolab pull                     # fast-forward to the latest main

From here you submit experiments, checkout a specific one, or diff your changes — see Run experiments.

Open the dashboard¶

autolab open          # the project dashboard
autolab open <id>     # a specific experiment's page

Delete a project¶

Owners can delete a project (and everything in it) from the CLI:

autolab settings delete           # confirms first
autolab settings delete --yes     # skip the prompt

This is permanent. See Project settings.