Getting the code onto your computer
From "I have paid" to a folder your AI assistant can read. Fifteen minutes, no commands to memorise.
You have paid. The code exists. It is not on your computer yet, and nothing you have installed knows about it. This page is that gap, and nothing else.
Three steps. At the end of them you will be looking at your own copy of the project, with an AI assistant reading it, waiting for you to say what to build.
You do not need to understand any of this
You need to be able to download a file, unzip it, and remember where you put it. Everything harder than that is the assistant's job, starting at step 3.
1. Download the project
Open your customer portal and sign in with the email address you paid with. There is no password — it emails you a code.
Under your order you will find a .zip file. Download it.
Then unzip it:
- macOS — double-click it. A folder appears next to it.
- Windows — right-click it, choose Extract All, then Extract.
You now have a folder called chandlery-starter. Move it somewhere you will
find again — Documents is fine, the Desktop is fine. Not the Downloads folder,
which is where things go to be forgotten.
Windows: extract it, do not just open it
Double-clicking a .zip on Windows shows you what is inside without unpacking
it. Things will half-work in confusing ways. Use Extract All.
If you came from the GitHub invitation instead
You were also invited to the project on GitHub, and you may have accepted it and landed on a page full of files. That page is not a dead end, but it is not the easy road either. Either download the zip above, or on that GitHub page click the green Code button and then Download ZIP — and note that this second route gives you the files without the update channel attached, so the zip from your portal is the better one.
The GitHub invitation is worth keeping regardless. It is how you receive new versions and how you report anything broken.
2. Install an AI coding assistant
You need exactly one of these. If you have no opinion, take the first.
| Where to get it | It is | |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | claude.com/claude-code | Anthropic's. A desktop app, or a command in your terminal. |
| Cursor | cursor.com | A code editor with an assistant built in. Most familiar if you have seen an editor before. |
| Codex | openai.com/codex | OpenAI's. |
All three can read this project and all three ship with instructions written for
them — the files CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md in the folder are addressed to the
assistant, not to you. You can ignore both.
Install it, sign in, and come back.
3. Open the folder, and say the first thing
This is the step that matters. An assistant that has not been pointed at your folder cannot see the project, and will confidently make things up instead.
- Claude Code (desktop app) — open it and choose the
chandlery-starterfolder when it asks which project to work on. - Claude Code (terminal) — open Terminal, type
cd(with the space), drag the folder onto the window, press Enter, then typeclaude. - Cursor — File → Open Folder, choose
chandlery-starter, then open the chat panel. - Codex — point it at the
chandlery-starterfolder the way its own setup guide describes.
Then paste this, word for word:
Read START-HERE.md and get this project running on my computer. I am not a developer, so install anything that is missing, explain each step in plain language, and tell me when I can open it in my browser.
That is the whole handover. From here the assistant reads the project's own instructions and walks you through the six stages. You do not have to remember any of this page.
How you know it worked
The assistant should tell you, in its own words, that this is a TanStack Start project running on Cloudflare with accounts and a database already in it — and then start installing things.
If instead it says it cannot find the file, or starts asking you what the project is, it is not looking at your folder. Go back to step 3.
If you are stuck
Say so, in plain words, to the assistant first — "I do not understand what you just asked me to do" is a completely reasonable thing to type, and it will back up and explain.
If that does not help, here is how to reach us. Tell us which of the three steps above you got to. That alone is usually enough for us to know what went wrong.