Prerequisites
Before you install Agentic-Z, your machine needs a handful of one-time setup pieces. Most are free, all of them are standard for DayZ modding regardless of whether you use this template.
You need a Windows machine with:
| Requirement | How to get it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| DayZ (the game) | Steam or Bohemia Store | The client (DayZ_x64.exe) you'll use to test mods. |
| DayZ Tools | Steam → Library → Tools (free) | AddonBuilder, Binarize, P-drive mounting. |
| DayZ Diag | Comes with DayZ. DayZDiag_x64.exe lives next to DayZ_x64.exe in your DayZ install dir | The diagnostic build that allows -filePatching to function. Used for both client and server in /dayz-launch-test. Retail binaries block past the loading screen with filePatching on. |
P:\ drive mounted | Open DayZ Tools → mount the P drive, OR run python .claude\skills\dayz-workdrive\mount.py (auto-resolves the work drive from DayZ Tools' settings.ini) | DayZ Tools and the engine both read from P:\. Preflight hard-fails without it. P:\ does not auto-mount; mount it at the start of each session. |
P:\Mods\ junction | One-time: cmd /c mklink /J P:\Mods "<DayZ install>\!Workshop" | The DayZ engine and Launcher load mods from <DayZ install>\!Workshop\. The P:\Mods\ junction lets builds deploy via P:\Mods\@<ModName>\Addons\<ModName>.pbo and actually land where the engine reads. Build-pbo hard-fails if this junction is missing or points at a regular folder. |
Vanilla DayZ data on P:\ | DayZ Tools → "Extract Game Data" | Configs in your mod inherit from base classes (ItemBase, Inventory_Base, etc.) which only exist if vanilla PBOs are unpacked. |
Python 3.8+ on PATH | python.org | The skills are Python scripts. |
| Voyage AI API key (optional, only for RAG) | Sign up at voyageai.com, grab a key from dashboard.voyageai.com, add VOYAGE_API_KEY=pa-… to .env at the repo root | Powers /dayz-search-index and the dayz-rag MCP server. Enables semantic search ("how does vanilla handle X?") over the indexed source. Embeddings via voyage-code-3 (code-tuned, 1024-dim). Without it, agents fall back to Grep on the documented vanilla paths. Fully functional, just less smart. Shortcut: /dayz-search-download pulls a prebuilt index from GitHub releases (~1 min). No key needed for download, but query-time still requires the key. |
Why so much setup?
DayZ's engine and Tools have specific path expectations baked in: addons resolve through the P:\ work drive, the Launcher loads mods from <DayZ install>\!Workshop\, and configs inherit from vanilla base classes. None of this is Agentic-Z's invention. It's how Bohemia ships the engine. The template's slash commands automate around these conventions so you don't have to think about them, but the underlying tools still need to exist.
Once everything is in place
Head to Installation & Setup to clone the repo and bootstrap the agent CLIs. That walkthrough assumes the prerequisites above are already done.