Overview

Dreadnode is AI infrastructure for the security stack. It gives offensive security teams and AI red team operators a terminal-native way to build, evaluate, and deploy security agents with confidence.

To install Dreadnode:

curl -fsSL https://dreadnode.io/install.sh | bash

Then start Dreadnode in any project:

cd your-project
dreadnode

You will be prompted to create a Dreadnode platform account or log in on first use. New accounts receive free starter credits so you can start exploring the hosted platform right away.

For a guided first session in the TUI, continue to /getting-started/quickstart.

Note

If the installer says your shell profile was updated, restart your terminal before running dreadnode or dn. If dreadnode still doesn’t resolve after restarting, run which dreadnode and echo "$PATH" to debug.

Note

If you are setting up a self-hosted deployment, use /self-hosting/quickstart instead.

What you can do

Once you are in the TUI, Dreadnode can help you:

• understand an unfamiliar target codebase or agent runtime
• prototype and iterate on offensive security workflows
• browse capabilities built for AI red teaming, pentesting, vuln research, and security testing
• switch between hosted Dreadnode models and BYOK provider models
• inspect sessions, runtimes, traces, evaluations, and sandboxes as you move from prototype to production

Try prompts like these in a project:

what does this security agent do?

where is the main entry point for this target or agent?

add input validation to the target registration flow

review this codebase for obvious security issues and recommend the first thing to test

Core TUI flow

• Launch with dreadnode
• Log in or create your platform account
• Ask a question about the target, capability, or environment
• Make a small change or run a first investigation
• Press Ctrl+P to add capabilities when you need more tools, skills, or agents

Continue

Quickstart

TUI Authentication

Models and Selection

Capabilities