Getting Started

This walkthrough takes you from the marketing page to your first AI-assisted SSH session in about five minutes.

Visit the pricing page and pick a plan. The four tiers differ in how you access models — Hobbyist runs local models plus BYOK cloud models on your own key; Operator, Pro, and Max add a bundled monthly AI budget. The desktop app and the security model are identical on all four. You can change tiers later from your account page, so don’t overthink the first pick.

Click Get started on the tier you want, then create an account through our hosted identity flow. Email + password works; so do GitHub, Google, and Microsoft if you’d rather single-sign-on.

2. Pay

After sign-up you land on the plan picker — your selected tier is already highlighted. Click Continue to checkout and you’ll be handed to our payment processor’s hosted checkout. Enter card details + billing address; tax is calculated automatically based on the address you enter.

The address you provide is saved to your customer record so you don’t have to re-enter it for future plan changes. We never see your card number — it lives entirely on the payment processor’s side.

3. Download

Once payment confirms, the welcome page links you to downloads.transitai.app, where you can download the latest signed installer for your platform:

macOS — Apple Silicon (M1 or later), macOS 12 Monterey or newer (.dmg)
Windows — 64-bit (.msi, or the -setup.exe installer)
Linux (Debian family) — x86_64 .deb for Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian 13+ (and derivatives on those bases)
Linux (RPM family) — x86_64 .rpm for Fedora 41+ and RHEL / AlmaLinux / Rocky 10. On Enterprise Linux 10 you need EPEL enabled, since it’s the only EL source of webkit2gtk4.1; Fedora ships that in its base repositories. RHEL / CentOS 9 and earlier are not supported — see below.

4. Install + launch

On macOS, open the downloaded .dmg, drag Transit AI to your Applications folder, and double-click to launch. The first launch may prompt for Gatekeeper approval — that’s standard for any notarized macOS app.

On Windows, run the .msi or -setup.exe installer and follow the prompts. The installer is Authenticode-signed (Transit AI Software Inc.); SmartScreen may ask you to confirm before the first launch.

On Linux, install the downloaded package with your distribution’s package manager, which resolves the dependencies automatically:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install ./Transit_<version>_amd64.deb

# Fedora / RHEL 10 / AlmaLinux 10 / Rocky 10
sudo dnf install ./Transit-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm

On Enterprise Linux 10, enable EPEL first (sudo dnf install epel-release) or the install fails on an unsatisfied webkit2gtk4.1 dependency. Fedora needs no extra repository.

You can verify the download against the release’s SHA256SUMS.txt on the downloads page. One platform note: Transit AI doesn’t auto-update on Linux — when a new version ships, download the new package and install it the same way (your connections and settings are kept).

Why RHEL 9 isn’t supported

Transit AI’s window is built on WebKitGTK 4.1, which requires libsoup3. No Enterprise Linux 9 repository ships that — EL9 carries only the older WebKitGTK 4.0 built against libsoup2, and the two libraries cannot coexist inside one process, so there’s no compatibility shim. EL9’s glibc is also older than the version our RPM is built against. Both are hard blockers rather than packaging choices, so EL9 users need RHEL 10 or Fedora.

You’ll see the welcome screen with a Sign in button. Click it.

Sign-in opens your system browser pointed at our authentication flow. Because you signed up via the same identity provider in step 1, the browser recognizes you — one click to confirm and you’re back in the desktop app.

If something goes wrong here, the browser will tell you why. The most common cause is a stale auth session in another browser tab; closing that tab and retrying clears it.

6. Add your first device

The sidebar on the left is where your devices live. Click the + icon and fill in:

A name for the device (anything you want)
Hostname or IP address
SSH port (defaults to 22)
Username
An authentication method — password, key file, or 1Password/macOS SSH agent

Save. The device appears in the sidebar.

7. Connect + the trust-on-first-use prompt

Click the device to open an SSH session. If this is the first time connecting to that host, you’ll see a host-key confirmation dialog showing the SHA-256 fingerprint of the host’s key. Compare it against the value you trust (the device’s own show ssh host-keys output, your team’s documentation, etc.) and confirm.

That fingerprint is now pinned on your machine. The next time you connect, no prompt — but if the fingerprint ever changes, Transit AI stops and shows a changed-key warning with the pinned and new fingerprints side by side. A changed fingerprint is either a re-keyed device (you’ll know because you did it) or a man-in-the-middle attempt — so verify out-of-band before ticking “I’ve verified this key change is legitimate” and clicking Replace & connect. Decline, and the old pin stays put and the connect fails.

8. Run a command

A terminal pane opens. It behaves like a normal SSH terminal — Tab completes, arrow keys recall history, Ctrl-C interrupts. Try a quick read: show version on Cisco IOS, show system information on Junos, show version on EOS or PAN-OS.

9. Open the chat panel and ask the AI

Toggle the chat panel on the right. The AI sees your open sessions, can read recent scrollback (with secrets filtered before they reach the model), and can propose commands for you to approve.

Try asking something like “What interfaces are up on this device?” The AI will look at scrollback, decide whether it has enough info, and either answer directly or propose a command (e.g., show interfaces brief). You’ll see an approval dialog with the exact command before anything runs.

Both the per-vendor permit list and your click are required for any command to execute. The AI cannot talk its way past either.

Where to go from here

Features — the rest of what’s in the app
Security model — how the agent firewall, permit list, and redaction work
Vendor coverage — which CLIs are first-class and what the per-vendor permit list allows
Billing & usage — how the AI budget works, what happens at your limit, BYOK
How-tos — practical workflows: bring your own key, split panes, find your IDs
FAQ — pre-purchase and operational questions