Installing pod on a Mac

One pasted line in Terminal puts a complete AI film studio on your Mac — this page walks you through it slowly, assuming you have never opened Terminal in your life.

What you're about to do

pod is a tiny AI film studio that lives on your own computer. Once installed, you type pod, talk to it in plain language — "make a 30-second teaser for my thriller — telugu, moody" — and it writes, casts, designs, shoots, quality-checks and edits a finished short film. Everything it makes saves to an episodes folder on your Mac. That's the only copy; pod's makers never store your footage or scripts.

Installing takes about two minutes of your attention. There is no app to drag into a folder and nothing to sign up for just to install — the one account you'll make (your generation key at kie.ai) comes later, in the key wizard, unless you're on a managed account — the whole thing happens in Terminal, which is just a window where you type instructions to your Mac instead of clicking them.

Step 1 — Open Terminal

Terminal comes with every Mac. It looks intimidating and isn't — it's a blank window with a blinking cursor, waiting for you to type something and press Enter (Enter means "do it").

Press Cmd-Space together. A search bar (Spotlight) appears in the middle of your screen.
Type Terminal.
Press Enter. A window opens with some text and a cursor.

Note: You only need Terminal for this install and for starting pod. Once you're inside pod, you talk to it like a person — no computer-speak required.

Step 2 — Paste the install line

Copy this entire line, click into the Terminal window, paste it (Cmd-V), and press Enter:

❯ curl -fsSL https://lic.brainpuddle.com/install.sh | sh

What this does, in plain words: it downloads pod's installer from pod's own server and runs it. The installer checks which kind of Mac you have — Apple Silicon (M-series) or Intel, it detects this automatically, you don't need to know which one you own — and puts the right version of pod in place. You'll see it print progress as it works.

Warning: If macOS shows a message that the app is from an unidentified developer, that's Gatekeeper being cautious about software that isn't in the App Store. The fix: right-click the app and choose Open. It's unsigned, not unsafe.

Step 3 — Start pod for the first time

When the installer finishes, type:

❯ pod

Two things happen on this very first run:

The toolchain download (~250 MB, one time only). pod fetches the tools it needs to cut and dress your films locally: a video engine (ffmpeg) and a graphics renderer for things like title cards. You'll see live progress while it downloads. This never happens again — every launch after this one is instant.
The key wizard. A friendly setup asks for up to three things: your pod license key (pod_sk_…, from whoever gave you pod), your generation key from kie.ai/api-key (this is the account that pays for the AI image and video generation — your own account, your own balance; topping up around $5 is enough to start), and an optional ElevenLabs key for voice-over (press Enter to skip it). If you're on a managed studio account, generation is included — you enter only the license key and skip the rest. The full walkthrough lives on the keys page.

Keys are saved to a private file in your home folder. There is nothing else to configure. First launch also plays a 30-second tour of the studio.

If Terminal says "command not found"

This is the most common hiccup and it's harmless. Terminal learned about pod after the window was opened, so it doesn't know the name yet.

Close the Terminal window completely (Cmd-Q).
Open it again (Cmd-Space, type Terminal, Enter).
Type pod and press Enter.

If it still doesn't start after a fresh Terminal window, see Troubleshooting.

Prove it works: the health check

pod ships with its own studio technician. Any time you want to confirm the setup is healthy — right after installing is a great moment — run:

❯ pod doctor
  (checks the whole setup, fixes what it can,
   and renders two free local test clips)

pod doctor re-checks everything and renders two free test clips on your own machine — no credits spent, no internet generation. If the clips play, your studio is ready. Run it again whenever anything ever looks off (wrong-looking titles, odd visuals); it self-heals the toolchain.

Want a taste before spending anything on a real production? Inside the studio, type demo — it renders a free 5-second local clip to prove the pipeline end to end.

What you'll see once you're in

Typing pod drops you "inside the studio": a bordered input box with a ❯ prompt. From here you just talk — paste a whole script, name a screenplay PDF sitting in your Downloads, or type a one-line idea. The front desk turns your plain language (any language) into the exact command and shows it to you before running anything. Tab completes command words and your episode names; Ctrl-C cancels a running job but never kicks you out, and progress is checkpointed. Type help any time, exit to leave.

Tip: Ready to make something? Head to Your first film for a start-to-finish walkthrough, or skim the quickstart if you'd rather just go. On a PC too? See Installing on Windows.

Quick recap

Step	What you do	What happens
1	`Cmd`-`Space` → type `Terminal` → `Enter`	Terminal opens
2	Paste the `curl` line, press `Enter`	Installer runs, auto-detects Apple Silicon vs Intel
3	Type `pod`	One-time ~250 MB toolchain download, then the key wizard
4	`pod doctor`	Full health check + two free local test clips

On Linux?

The exact same one-line installer works on Linux (x64). Paste it into your terminal, then run pod — everything else in these docs is identical.

← Quickstart Install on Windows →