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Get Aether running on your Android, iOS, or macOS device with a working LLM provider. By the end of this guide you’ll have a fully functional AI agent ready to chat — and optionally, ready to run shell commands and automate tasks on your device.
1

Install Aether

  1. Go to the Aether GitHub Releases page and download the latest arm64-v8a APK (requires Android 8.0+).
  2. Allow installations from unknown sources in Settings → Apps → Special app access → Install unknown apps.
  3. Open the downloaded APK file and tap Install.
2

Launch and complete onboarding

The first time you open Aether, an onboarding screen walks you through the required setup:
  • Grant Notifications permission so Aether can alert you when agent tasks complete.
  • On Android, choose whether to set up the built-in Alpine runtime or Termux with optional Agent Mode.
Follow the on-screen prompts for each step. You can revisit permissions later in your system settings.
3

Add an LLM provider

Aether needs at least one LLM provider configured before you can chat:
  1. Open the conversation drawer from the menu button, then tap Settings.
  2. Select Model Providers.
  3. Tap Add Provider and choose your preferred service — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, Groq, Mistral, Cloudflare, or any other supported option.
  4. Configure the API key, OAuth, or environment credentials supported by that provider.
  5. Fetch and enable the models you want, then tap Save.
4

Select a model

Back on the main chat screen:
  1. Tap the model selector in the top bar.
  2. Browse the list of models from your configured provider and tap the one you want to use.
5

Send your first message

Type a message in the composer and tap Send. Aether streams the response directly from your chosen LLM in real time. That’s it — you’re up and running!
Toggle Agent Mode in the composer menu (the pointer icon) when you want Aether to control apps on an isolated Android virtual display. Shell commands, Skills, MCP servers, and multi-step tool calls are available without Agent Mode.
The Alpine Linux root filesystem is bundled with Aether and extracted when you initialize Alpine. It is not downloaded when you enable Agent Mode.