> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.splox.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Starters

> Copying a working harness, and what you get when you do

A starter is a harness somebody already wrote, published for you to copy. You do
not start from an empty repository; you start from one that answers messages,
and then you change it.

<Frame caption="The Starters tab: a harness to copy, and what it is">
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/sploxltd-165e0515/FtagtnY5r9E1DKmP/images/app/starters.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=FtagtnY5r9E1DKmP&q=85&s=dd7d692d18077c239c33a2a4733e1959" alt="The Starters tab with the Assistant starter" width="2880" height="1800" data-path="images/app/starters.png" />
</Frame>

**Assistant** is the one marked *Default*, and it is the starter your account was
given a copy of when you signed up — which is why **Your harnesses** says *Copied
from Assistant* under a harness you never created. It is described as *a
general-purpose agent with a Linux sandbox: runs code, reads files, uses your
skills and your standing notes.*

## Copying one

Click the card. Splox asks where the copy should run, then what to call the two
things it is about to make:

<Frame caption="A copy of the starter, and the machine that runs it">
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/sploxltd-165e0515/FtagtnY5r9E1DKmP/images/app/starter-name.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=FtagtnY5r9E1DKmP&q=85&s=26388d17b753921a6bb1d43bc22076a4" alt="The Name them step with a harness field and a machine field" width="2880" height="1800" data-path="images/app/starter-name.png" />
</Frame>

One click creates both: a git repository of your own, seeded with the starter's
tree, and a machine that checks it out and runs it. The names default to the
starter's name and `Sandbox`; change them if you are going to have more than one.

## What you get

A copy is a real repository, not a template you fill in. It carries the
[programs](/concepts/program) the starter declared — `programs/splox/main.py`
with the agents in it, the `hooks/` that shape its runs, the harness's own
`tools/`, its prompts and its evals.

From then on it is yours and it drifts from the original. Publishing a new
version of the starter does not reach into harnesses copied from it, and nothing
you change is pushed back.

## What happens next

The machine checks the harness out at `~/harness`, installs whatever the tree
declares, and starts answering. Nothing else is required of you: open a chat on
the new machine and it works.

To change who that agent is, edit the checkout. The agent can do it for you —
that is what the `~/harness` checkout is for — or you can clone the repository
and push. Either way the next message reads the new file.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Changing what your agent is" icon="comments" href="/ask/overview">
    The tour of the tree you just copied.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Versions and going back" icon="code-branch" href="/inside/versions">
    How an edit reaches the machine that runs it.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>