# Getting Started with CrabDash

Download CrabDash, add your first LLM provider key, and route requests through your personal local gateway.

CrabDash is a macOS menubar app that gives you a personal LLM gateway. Every request — cloud or local — routes through one port on your machine. Nothing leaves localhost unless you tell it to.

## Requirements

- macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
- Apple Silicon (M1+) for local models, Intel supported for cloud-only

## Install

Download [CrabDash.dmg](https://cdn.crabtalk.ai/crabdash/latest/CrabDash.dmg). Open the `.dmg`, drag to Applications, and launch. The crab icon appears in your menubar.

## First launch

On first launch CrabDash starts a local [CrabLLM](/content/docs/crabllm/index.html) gateway on `127.0.0.1:5635`. It speaks both OpenAI and Anthropic formats — point any compatible app or SDK at it.

```
curl http://127.0.0.1:5635/v1/models
```

No models will appear yet. You need at least one provider key.

## Add a provider key

1. Click the menubar icon  
2. Open **Settings → Providers**  
3. Click **Add Provider**, pick a provider (e.g., OpenAI), and paste your API key  
4. The models from that provider appear immediately in the request dropdown and in `/v1/models`

See [Provider Keys](/content/docs/crabdash/provider-keys/index.html) for step-by-step instructions on getting free keys from each provider.

## Send your first request

```
curl http://127.0.0.1:5635/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{\n    "model": "gpt-4o-mini",\n    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from CrabDash"}]\n  }'
```

The request appears in the menubar's live tail. You can see the provider it routed to, latency, token count, and cost.

## Next steps

- [Get free provider keys](/content/docs/crabdash/provider-keys/index.html) for Google Gemini, Groq, NVIDIA, and more  
- [Use the gateway API](/content/docs/crabdash/gateway-api/index.html) from any app or SDK  
- [Run local models](/content/docs/crabdash/local-models/index.html) via MLX on Apple Silicon