Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

Python 3.10.16+
pip (usually included with Python) or uv (install uv)
Operating System: macOS, Linux, or Windows (via WSL)
LLM API key from any major provider or your own custom endpoint.

Installation

Solace Agent Mesh Module comes with two components:

Solace Agent Mesh (SAM) CLI: To create, build, run, and extend Solace Agent Mesh.
Solace Agent Mesh framework: A Python-based framework that you can build upon to customize and extend the capabilities of Solace Agent Mesh.

Installing the PyPi package installs both the SAM CLI and the framework (which is built on the Python SDK).

tip

We recommend that you install the package in a virtual environment to avoid conflicts with other Python packages.

Creating a Virtual Environment

Using PIP

Create a virtual environment.

python3 -m venv .venv

Activate the environment.

To activate on Linux or Unix platforms:
```
source .venv/bin/activate
```
To activate on Windows:
```
.venv\Scripts\activate
```

Using UV

Create a virtual environment.

uv venv .venv

Activate the environment.

To activate on Linux or Unix platforms:
```
source .venv/bin/activate
```
To activate on Windows:
```
.venv\Scripts\activate
```
Expose the following environment variables:

On Linux or Unix platforms:

export SAM_PLUGIN_INSTALL_COMMAND="uv pip install {package}"

On Windows:

set SAM_PLUGIN_INSTALL_COMMAND="uv pip install {package}"

Install Solace Agent Mesh

The following command installs Solace Agent Mesh (SAM) CLI in your environment:

Using PIP

pip install solace-agent-mesh

Using UV

uv pip install solace-agent-mesh

Docker Alternative

Alternatively, you can use our pre-built Docker image to run SAM CLI commands without a local Python installation. This is useful for quick tasks or CI/CD environments. Note that the pre-built Docker image is configured with group solaceai and non-root user solaceai.

To verify the installation using Docker, you can run:

docker run --rm solace/solace-agent-mesh:latest --version

This command pulls the latest image (if not already present) and executes solace-agent-mesh --version inside the container. The --rm flag ensures the container is removed after execution.

If the OS architecture on your host is not linux/amd64, you would need to add --platform linux/amd64 when running container.

For more complex operations like building a project, you'll need to mount your project directory into the container. See the Quick Start guide for an example.

Browser Requirement

The Mermaid agent requires a browser with headless mode support to be installed (it uses headless mode to render diagrams). Use playwright to install the browser dependencies. If you are using the Docker image, this is already included.

To install the browser dependencies, run:

playwright install

Run the following SAM CLI command (solace-agent-mesh) to verify your installation:

solace-agent-mesh --version

tip

For easier access to the SAM CLI, it also comes with the sam alias.

sam --version

To get the list of available commands, run:

solace-agent-mesh --help