ValhallaGet started
Valhalla is a desktop app in which six AI personas sit at one table, share a library of skills and your own domain knowledge, and answer in their own voices. This page is the first ten minutes.
1. Install it
Download the build for your machine. On a Mac, open the disk image and drag Valhalla to Applications; the first launch needs System Settings › Privacy & Security › Open Anyway, once, because the app is not notarised yet. On Windows, run the installer; it installs for your user only and needs no administrator password, and SmartScreen may ask you to press More info › Run anyway. The download page walks both through.
Valhalla carries its own Python inside, so there is nothing else to install except the model you want to talk to.
2. Give it a model
Valhalla ships no model. It drives one you already have, through one of its engines. The usual choice is Claude Code, signed in with a Claude subscription: install it from Anthropic, run claude once in a terminal to sign in, and Valhalla finds it. An Anthropic API key, an OpenAI-compatible endpoint or a local server work too. Engines has the whole choice.
Open Settings › Engine (⌘ , on a Mac, Ctrl , on Windows) to see which engines are ready.
3. Start a conversation
The window opens on Home: the members' faces, your recent work, your projects. There is no composer on Home on purpose. Just type, and a conversation starts with the whole council; click a face first and it starts with that one member. A short walkthrough runs the first time, and you can replay it from Settings › Advanced › Window.
Each member answers in turn, in their own voice, with a mark that says who is speaking. Mimir, the host, is the one to ask when you do not know who you need.
4. Point it at your code
Choose a repository from the chip in the sidebar. A conversation rooted there reads the branch and the diff with every request, so "review my changes" works without pasting anything, and a member with the Claude Code engine can change files. Every turn is snapshotted first, and the strip under the reply undoes it. Projects and repositories explains the rest.
Where everything lives
| Path | What |
|---|---|
~/.valhalla/ | Your layer. On Windows, %USERPROFILE%\.valhalla. Set VALHALLA_HOME to move it. |
~/.valhalla/config.json | Every setting, as plain JSON. |
~/.valhalla/mimir.sqlite3 | Conversations, recall, decisions, projects. |
~/.valhalla/personas/ skills/ knowledge/ workflows/ | Your overrides and your own files, one markdown file each. |
<repo>/.valhalla/ | A repository's own layer, meant to be committed. Wins over both of the above. |
Three layers, narrowest wins: what ships, your home folder, the repository.
Updates
Once a day the app asks this site for the newest version and says so in Settings › Advanced › Window › About. The button there downloads the installer, checks it against its published checksum and opens it. Nothing is downloaded until you press it, the setting beside it turns the check off, and your data is untouched by an upgrade.