# Zitadel (developer preview)

> Your login in one minute. Zitadel is open-source auth for users, services, and AI agents that lives in the app's repo: one terminal session gives an app a local Zitadel with login, registration, and profile pages, and the user model, the login flow, and the styling are files in the repo. This is the preview of the next Zitadel: APIs, CLI flags and packages still change.

Run it locally with the published CLI (Node.js 24 or newer), in a new folder for a Next.js app. Every Zitadel command takes `--non-interactive --json` and prints one JSON envelope on stdout:

```sh
mkdir myapp && cd myapp
npx @zitadel/cli@latest start
npx @zitadel/cli@latest setup --framework next --server local
npm run dev
```

`start` runs Zitadel on the machine and signs in to its console; users, passwords and sessions live there, not in the app. `setup` writes these files into the app, and `npm run dev` serves the login:

- `app/login/page.tsx`: Login page
- `app/register/page.tsx`: Registration page
- `app/profile/page.tsx`: Profile page
- `proxy.ts`: Next.js proxy
- `.zitadel/schemas/default-human-user.json`: User model
- `.zitadel/flows/default-login.json`: Login flow

To change the user model or the login flow, edit those files, then publish the change: `npx @zitadel/cli@latest plan` shows what changes, `npx @zitadel/cli@latest apply` makes it live. To match a brand, set the login's `--zl-*` design tokens on `zitadel-login` in the app's own stylesheet, and restyle its card, fields and buttons with `::part()`.

Install the Zitadel skills into a skills-compatible agent: `npx skills add zitadel/nextgen --full-depth`.

## Not supported yet

- Account linking: a social sign-in never links to an existing account. A user with a password account who signs in with Google lands on "You already have an account" every time.
- Password recovery: the login has no "forgot password" step, because the server sends no email yet (the dev inbox, ADR 050, and recovery, ADR 038, are still proposals).

## Docs

- [Docs index](/docs/llms.txt): every page of the docs, with its Markdown URL
- [Full docs](/docs/llms-full.txt): every page except the API operations, in one file
- [Quickstart](/docs/get-started/quickstart.md): from an empty folder to working local auth
- [Agent setup](/docs/get-started/agents.md): the CLI's JSON contract and the browser proof
- [Flows and schemas](/docs/concepts/flows-and-schemas.md): how login flows, user schemas and the generated UI relate
- [Edit the login flow and schema](/docs/guides/plan-apply.md): edit the local configuration and sync it
- [Add social sign-in](/docs/guides/social-sign-in.md): "Sign in with Google" or any OpenID Connect provider, with `zitadel auth-method sso enable`
- [Customize the login design](/docs/guides/customize-design.md): the stable tokens and CSS parts, or a starter design with your branding, published as a revision
- [Docs MCP server](/docs/api/mcp): the tools search, list_pages and get_page

## Optional

- [Run Zitadel locally](/docs/guides/local-runtime.md): how the CLI starts and stores local Zitadel state
- [Configuration as code](/docs/concepts/repo-config.md): how the app's auth configuration stays reviewable
- [Source](https://github.com/zitadel/nextgen): the repository on GitHub
- [Vision](https://github.com/zitadel/nextgen/blob/main/VISION.md): the four pillars and where each stands
- [Zitadel v4](https://zitadel.com): the current release, for production