You bring your own API key. Pay your provider directly.
The installer picks up whichever key you've exported and resolves a sensible default model. Set one of GEMINI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, or OPENAI_API_KEY and you are done.
Want something else? Set IDEATWISTER_MODEL to any LiteLLM-supported provider - OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Together, Groq, Mistral, Ollama, and more. You pay your provider directly, no IdeaTwister markup, no subscription.
IdeaTwister for Claude Code
The recommended way to run IdeaTwister. Extract the zip file you purchased and run the install script in 2 minutes, zero configuration needed.
Prerequisites
- Claude Code installed and running
- A provider API key set for IdeaTwister (Gemini, Anthropic, or OpenAI) - see Provider Setup. You bring your own key and pay the provider directly.
- Python 3.10 or newer on your
PATH- the installer checks this for you. - IdeaTwister zip file (received after purchase)
- 5 to 50 minutes for a run, depending on the depth mode you pick
Installation
Step 1 - Extract the zip file
Unzip the IdeaTwister file you received. You'll see a folder structure with install.sh and platform-specific files.
Step 2 - Run the install script (recommended)
Open your terminal and run:
cd /path/to/ideatwister-zip
./install.sh
The script auto-detects Claude Code and installs everything automatically.
Step 3 - Or install manually
If you prefer manual setup:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/ideatwister
cp -r /path/to/ideatwister-engine/skills/ideatwister/* ~/.claude/skills/ideatwister/
Then restart Claude Code.
Verify the installation
In a Claude Code chat, type:
/ideatwister help
You should see the command list. If the command isn't recognized, try restarting Claude Code.
First-run example
You: /ideatwister "I want to build a niche job board for remote accountants"
Claude: 🎬 IdeaTwister - Idea Mutation AI Engine
Loading orchestrator...
Pick a Depth Mode:
[1] Quick ~5 min ~15 variations
[2] Standard ~15 min ~30 variations
[3] Recommended ~25 min ~50 variations (default - press Enter)
[4] Deep ~50 min ~75 variations
[5] Custom pick lenses and seeds-per-lens
You: <Enter>
✅ Depth Mode: Recommended
✅ Data store initialized: ~/.ideatwister/runs/
✅ Deriving slug: remote-accountant-job-board-2026-04-24
[Engine runs through the ten phases - understand, intent, research,
lens selection, generation, validate, calibrate, stress-test,
convergence, synthesis...]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ Pipeline Complete!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Depth Mode: Recommended
Variations: 49
High conviction (8+): 6
Score range: 4.2 – 8.9
Time elapsed: 25 minutes
📊 Dashboard: ~/.ideatwister/runs/remote-accountant-job-board-2026-04-24/dashboard.html
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/ideatwister "<idea>" | Run the full pipeline. Example: /ideatwister "I want to build a freelance invoicing tool" |
/ideatwister list | Show all past runs with dates, scores, and variation counts |
/ideatwister open <slug> | Open the HTML dashboard. If only one run exists, you can omit the slug |
/ideatwister variations <slug> [--min-score 8] [--strategy 01] [--top] | Browse variations with optional filters |
/ideatwister help | Show all available commands and syntax |
Full details: commands.md.
Limitations
- Web search: handled by IdeaTwister's direct call to your chosen provider (Gemini, Anthropic, or OpenAI), not by Claude Code itself.
- Browser open: the dashboard opens automatically on macOS/Linux. On Windows, you may need to open the path manually.
- Large token usage: a full run is intensive. Allow up to 50 minutes for Deep mode and ensure Claude Code doesn't time out. If you want a faster smoke-test, pick Quick at the depth mode prompt.
Troubleshooting
Command not found: /ideatwister
Restart Claude Code after installing. If still not found, verify the skill files are in place:
ls ~/.claude/skills/ideatwister
Run seems stuck
Interrupt the run (Cmd+C or Ctrl+C in the chat). Check your network connection (the research phase needs internet), then start a fresh run. If you want to confirm the install before committing to a 25-minute Recommended run, pick Quick at the depth mode prompt - it completes in about 5 minutes.
Dashboard doesn't open automatically
The path is printed in the chat. Copy it and manually open in your browser:
open ~/.ideatwister/runs/{slug}/dashboard.html
Permission denied on ~/.ideatwister/
chmod -R u+w ~/.ideatwister/
Updating
Download the latest version from your account and run the install script again. It will automatically update all installed files.
Uninstalling
rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/ideatwister
Your data in ~/.ideatwister/ is preserved after uninstalling.