First-Time Setup¶
On the first launch, Backend.AI GO opens a six-step onboarding wizard.
- Language
- Accelerator choice
- Models directory
- Optional first model download
- Optional cloud provider setup
- Completion
Supported interface languages¶
The current wizard supports these UI languages:
- English (
en) - Korean (
ko) - Japanese (
ja) - Spanish (
es) - French (
fr) - Traditional Chinese (
zh-TW) - Simplified Chinese (
zh-CN)
Step 1: Language¶
Choose the interface language first. The rest of the wizard updates immediately to match your selection.
Step 2: Accelerator choice¶
Backend.AI GO detects the host and recommends an accelerator family.
- On Apple Silicon, this usually points you toward Metal-capable local engines and MLX support.
- On NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel systems, the recommendation reflects the available local acceleration path.
- You can keep the recommended option or switch to a manual choice.
The choice is recorded in settings and acted on when the wizard finishes. If no installed engine already serves the chosen family and the app carries no built-in engine, the matching llama.cpp engine is downloaded in the background after setup. A headless server install is the case where this matters: it ships no embedded engine, so without the download it would finish onboarding with nothing able to run a local model.
Onboarding never waits for that download. Progress appears in the notification center and in the header download indicator, and a failure is reported there with a link to Engines instead of blocking the wizard. The step 6 summary states which of the outcomes applies: an engine will be installed, one is already installed, the built-in engine will be used, or nothing will be installed automatically.
Step 3: Models directory¶
Choose where downloaded local models should live. Leaving the field empty tells the server to use its default app-data path.
Default app-data roots are:
| Platform | Current app data root | Default models directory |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/ai.backend.go/ | ~/Library/Application Support/ai.backend.go/models/ |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\ai.backend.go\ | %APPDATA%\ai.backend.go\models\ |
| Linux | ~/.local/share/ai.backend.go/ | ~/.local/share/ai.backend.go/models/ |
The older ~/.backend-ai-go/ path is legacy-only. Current desktop installs use the ai.backend.go app-data directory.
Step 4: Optional first model download¶
You can finish onboarding without downloading a model, or let the wizard queue a recommended first model.
The wizard can also offer a companion extraction model. This second download is optional and is intended for workflows that use extraction or utility-model paths.
After onboarding, you can always download more models from Models > Browse.
Step 5: Optional cloud provider setup¶
You may optionally register API keys for supported cloud providers during onboarding.
The wizard currently supports:
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Gemini
This step is skippable. You can add or edit providers later from API Settings.
Step 6: Completion¶
The final screen summarizes the selections and sends you to Home, not directly to the power-user dashboard.
From there you can:
- open Models > Browse to download more models
- open Models > Local to load downloaded models
- start a chat or cowork session from Home or Chat
- open Engines to install additional local or container engines