Start here: 1 · 2 · 3
Paste one line, answer one question, open one page
1Overview
One line you paste. It downloads the bench, installs Docker if you need it, asks one question, and opens your browser at http://localhost:8080.
The whole install in three steps and nothing else. Paste a line, press Enter for the free local model, and your browser opens at localhost:8080 with everything running. → `bench-install` is the same install with the reasons, the three prompts your computer shows, and what to do when one of them looks wrong.
Three steps. Ten to twenty-five minutes, almost all of it downloading, and only three moments need you at all.
Once, at the start. Every morning after that is the desktop icon.
8 GB of RAM, about 15 GB free, and twenty minutes where the laptop can download unattended.
Three prompts come from your own computer, not from us: your password, Docker's licence screen, and on some Windows PCs one restart. All three are normal.
2Lessons 3
2.1 1 · Paste one line
Start the install.
⌘Space → type terminal → Enter → paste
curl -fsSL https://curriculum.32dots.de/bench.sh | bash- You'll see Text scrolling past. That is the download — leave it alone.
- Takeaway One line. Nothing to download by hand, nothing to click past a security warning.
2.2 2 · Press Enter
Do this first 1 · Paste one line
Answer the one question it asks: where the AI comes from.
- Press Enter. That takes option 1 — the model that comes with the bench. Free, offline, no account.
- Your computer may ask for your password, and Docker may show its licence screen. Both are normal; accept and it continues.
- On some Windows PCs it asks for one restart. Restart, then double-click
HeidelbergBenchin your home folder again.
- You'll see The download continues on its own.
- Takeaway Enter is the right answer the first time. You can change it later in one click.
2.3 3 · Open the page
Do this first 2 · Press Enter
Use it.
http://localhost:8080in your browser — it opens by itself when the install finishes.
- Your apps are on that page: n8n, AnythingLLM, Hermes, the shared drive and the model, each with an Open button.
- Tomorrow, use the desktop icon — "Heidelberg AI Bench". It starts everything and asks nothing.
- Prefer a folder to a pasted line? Download [heidelberg-ai-bench.zip](https://curriculum.32dots.de/heidelberg-ai-bench.zip), unzip it, and double-click
HeidelbergBench.command(Mac — right-click → Open the first time) orHeidelbergBench.bat(Windows). Same result; the pasted line is better only because it updates itself and meets no browser warning.
- You'll see The bench dashboard, with every app green.
- Takeaway Three steps and it is yours. →
bench-dashboardis what every part of that page does.
💬 Discuss this chapter
Ask, share, or report — over on the Heidelberg AI community forum.