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Get up and running with Acontext in under 5 minutes. This guide walks you through setting up the server, installing the SDK, and storing your first messages.
1

Start Acontext server

Choose between hosted or self-hosted Acontext:
2

Install the SDK

pip install acontext
Requires Python 3.10 or newer.
3

Verify your setup

Run this script to test your connection and store your first messages:
import os
from acontext import AcontextClient

client = AcontextClient(
    api_key=os.getenv("ACONTEXT_API_KEY"),
)

# If you're using self-hosted Acontext:
# client = AcontextClient(
#     base_url="http://localhost:8029/api/v1",
#     api_key="sk-ac-your-root-api-bearer-token",
# )

print(client.ping())

# Create a session (optionally associate with a user)
session = client.sessions.create(user="user@example.com")

# Store messages
client.sessions.store_message(
    session_id=session.id,
    blob={
        "role": "assistant",
        "content": """Here is my plan:
1. Use Next.js for the frontend
2. Use Supabase for the database
3. Deploy to Cloudflare Pages
""",
    },
)
client.sessions.store_message(
    session_id=session.id,
    blob={
        "role": "user",
        "content": "Confirm, go ahead. Use tailwind for frontend styling.",
    },
)

# Retrieve messages
messages = client.sessions.get_messages(session_id=session.id)
print(messages.items)
If you see the success message and your stored messages, you’re ready to start using Acontext!

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Troubleshooting

  • Verify your Acontext server is running
  • Check that the base_url is correct
  • Ensure no firewall is blocking the connection
  • For local development, confirm you’re using http://localhost:8029/api/v1
  • Verify your API key is correct
  • Check that the API key has the necessary permissions
  • Ensure you’re passing the API key in the correct format
  • Confirm the package is installed: pip list | grep acontext (Python) or npm list @acontext/acontext (TypeScript)
  • Try reinstalling the package
  • Check your Python version is 3.10+ or Node.js version is 16+
  • Ensure you’re using TypeScript 4.5 or newer
  • Run npm install to ensure all type definitions are installed
  • Check that your tsconfig.json has proper settings for module resolution

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Next steps

Session Management

Create and manage sessions for organizing your conversations

Context Engineering

Build a compact context for agents in one API call

Disk Storage

Store and manage files and artifacts in Acontext

Skill Memory

Understand how skill memory works

API Reference

Explore the complete API documentation