Install (pre-release / early-access testers)

What this is

You’re testing a pre-release build of Sentience Governor. It’s hosted on TestPyPI, which is Python’s staging server. Crescere Labs publishes builds there before they go live on the real Python package index.

The install is one command. It takes about 30 seconds.

Before you start

You need:

A Mac or Linux terminal (Windows works too via PowerShell)
Python 3.10 or newer (check by running python3 --version)
An internet connection

You do not need:

A GitHub account
To download any file manually
To click any link

The install command

Replace <VERSION> with the version Crescere Labs gave you (for example, 0.2.1).

If you have pipx installed (recommended on macOS and Linux — see “First-time setup” below if you don’t):

pipx install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ \
    --pip-args='--extra-index-url https://pypi.org/simple/' \
    sentience-governor==<VERSION>

If you’re inside an active virtualenv (or on Windows where pipx is less common):

pip install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ \
    --extra-index-url https://pypi.org/simple/ \
    sentience-governor==<VERSION>

Either command will fetch the package, fetch its dependencies, and install everything. You’ll see a few lines of output ending in Successfully installed sentience-governor-<VERSION> ....

First-time setup (only if you don’t have pipx)

On macOS and most Linux systems, raw pip install fails with an externally-managed-environment error because modern Pythons block global pip installs by design. pipx is the standard fix.

macOS:

brew install pipx
pipx ensurepath

Linux / WSL:

python3 -m pip install --user pipx
pipx ensurepath

After pipx ensurepath, restart your terminal (or run source ~/.zshrc / source ~/.bashrc) so the new $PATH takes effect.

Verify it worked

Run these three:

sentience --help
sentience-cli --help
sentience-sync --help

Each should print a usage screen. If all three do, you’re installed and ready to go.

What to do next

Now that you’re installed, follow the public quickstart:

https://getsentience.ai/docs/quickstart/

Skip the “Install” section there. You’ve already done it (with the TestPyPI command above, which is different from the public one). Every other section applies exactly as written: wiring the Claude Code hook, running sentience commands, viewing traces, optional Sentience Sync.

If anything in the public quickstart contradicts what you see in your installed version, that’s a bug. Email operators@crescerelabs.com with the contradiction.

Known wrinkle: macOS + Python from python.org

If sentience-sync register fails with SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED, your Python install is missing CA roots. This is a known macOS-Python.org packaging quirk, not a Sentience bug. One-time fix:

/Applications/Python\ 3.13/Install\ Certificates.command

(Adjust 3.13 to match your installed Python version.) Then re-run sentience-sync register.

If something went wrong

”No matching distribution found for sentience-governor”

You probably ran pip install sentience-governor (or pipx install sentience-governor) without the --index-url flags. The package is only on the staging server right now, not the main one. Re-run the full command from The install command above.

If you already tried the wrong command once, pip or pipx may have cached the failure. Clear the cache and retry:

pip cache purge
pipx uninstall sentience-governor 2>/dev/null  # ok if "not installed"

“externally-managed-environment” error

You ran pip install sentience-governor (or with the --index-url flags) directly against your system Python. Modern macOS and Linux Pythons block this by design. Use pipx instead — see First-time setup above.

”pipx ensurepip” failure

If pipx install fails with an ensurepip exit status 1 error, the Python pipx defaulted to has a broken ensurepip module (sometimes happens with very new Python versions on macOS). Tell pipx to use a known-good Python:

rm -rf ~/.local/pipx/shared
PIPX_DEFAULT_PYTHON=python3.12 pipx install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ \
    --pip-args='--extra-index-url https://pypi.org/simple/' \
    sentience-governor==<VERSION>

“command not found: sentience”

The install worked, but the directory pip put the commands into isn’t on your $PATH. Quick fix on macOS:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Add that line to ~/.zshrc to make it permanent.

”ERROR: This package requires Python >=3.10”

Your default python3 is older than 3.10. Install a newer one (Homebrew: brew install python@3.12) and re-run the command using python3.12 -m pip install ... instead of pip install ....

Anything else: get help

Email operators@crescerelabs.com with a screenshot of the full terminal output (the error and the command that produced it). Don’t truncate. That reaches a human directly, usually replied to within a few hours.

What I should not do

Do not download files manually. If you saw a webpage with two file links (one ending .whl, one ending .tar.gz), ignore it. Those links are for pip to read, not for you to click. Clicking them shows binary garbage in the browser. That’s expected, and not how installation works.
Do not click “Cmd+Click” workarounds on those links. You don’t need the files at all.
Do not run pip install sentience-governor (without flags). That hits the wrong server and fails.

When the test is over

To uninstall:

pip uninstall sentience-governor

Removes the package and the three commands. Local trace files at ~/.sentience/ stay until you delete them yourself.

One inbox for everything

operators@crescerelabs.com is the address for all of it:

Stuck on install or anything else. Send a screenshot.
Found a bug. Describe what you did and what happened.
Have feedback on the product. What’s confusing, what’s missing, what feels wrong, what feels right. All useful.
Have a feature suggestion. Send it.

Crescere Labs replies within a few hours. There’s no separate channel and no form to fill out. It’s just an email to a human.