First run
What the four first-run steps ask, why the model choice is not optional, and what to do when a step will not let you past.
The first time KnightCode starts it opens a four-step screen instead of an empty buffer. It takes about a minute and you never touch a terminal.
1. Welcome
Pick a theme (light, dark or system) and a keymap (KnightCode, VS Code, JetBrains or Sublime Text). Both write to your settings file and both are changeable later in Settings.
This step also carries one switch, on by default:
Send an anonymous ping when KnightCode is installed or updated
Sends the version, your operating system and architecture, and an approximate location derived from the connecting address. No account, no file, no project name, and no identifier that follows you between versions.
That is the whole of it. Turning it off here turns it off for the CLI too — there is one setting, not two — and you can change it later in Settings → AI. See Privacy for what is and is not sent.
2. Sign in
The buttons are whatever the engine reports it can sign in to: Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, then anything else, then an API key. There is no table of providers inside the editor, so this list follows the engine rather than a release.
This step is skipped entirely if you are already signed in — including from
the CLI, on the same machine. Both read the same auth.json, so one login
really is one login.
KnightCode holds no API key of its own. The credential is written by the engine, to your KnightCode configuration directory, and nothing in the editor ever reads it.
It will not let me past
Continue stays disabled until an account exists. If the buttons are missing entirely, the engine is not running — see When the engine will not start.
3. Pick a model
Every model your account can reach, grouped by provider. Pick one.
This step is not skippable when nothing is recorded, and that is deliberate. Three of the five AI surfaces — Cmd+K in a buffer, Cmd+K in the terminal, and commit-message generation — have no model to send to until you have chosen one, and they fail silently rather than guessing. KnightCode never picks a model on your behalf: it is your account and your money.
If a choice is already recorded — because you picked one in the CLI — this step is skipped and shows what you chose.
You can change it any time in Settings → AI. The agent panel also has its own per-session picker, which overrides this choice for that session only.
4. Open something
Open a folder…, Clone a repository…, or Skip for now. Whichever you choose, first run is done and does not come back.
To see it again: Help → Welcome to KnightCode.
After it
Everything first run set is in Settings. The sign-in and the model picker are the same two components, under Settings → AI → KnightCode, so nothing you saw during setup is hidden afterwards.