---
id: dex-lens
title: Using Dex Lens
area: Make it yours
order: 85
summary: Give the AI system you built an honest, read-only second opinion and see which ideas from Dex are genuinely worth borrowing.
---

Dex Lens gives the AI system you built yourself an honest second opinion, and shows you the few Dex ideas worth borrowing into it. This is the practical walkthrough; the story of [why it exists](https://heydex.ai/lens/) is on the Lens page.

## Installing

```bash
curl -fsSL https://heydex.ai/lens | bash
```

Paste that into your terminal. It installs the dex-lens command in its own private space where it cannot disturb anything else, and puts the Dex Lens skill where your assistant looks for skills: Claude Code always, and Codex too if you use it. It then prints the one line that starts the conversation. Run the same install line again any time to update; that is always safe.

It needs Python and says so plainly if it is missing. Every download carries a tamper check — like a sealed label — that proves it came from Dex's published release and has not changed. The current release supports Apple Silicon Macs and 64-bit Intel or AMD Linux machines. Windows, Intel Macs, and ARM Linux are not supported yet.

## Your first session

Open your assistant in the folder where your system lives and ask, in your own words:

```prompt Start your first Lens session
Have a look at my setup and tell me what Dex has that I don't.
```

The session unfolds in a fixed shape: it asks which folder it may read (nothing is read before you answer); it tells you what is genuinely good with quotes from your own files; it holds up a mirror (leftover clutter, drifted copies, rules your own skills break, and it must hunt for contradictions on every run); it compares your system against the published list of what Dex can do, job by job, rejecting most with reasons; you decide and your decisions are remembered; it saves a dated report and signs off.

Lens compares more than instructions and skills. It also understands the connections that let Dex use other apps, recurring work that runs on a schedule, and the behind-the-scenes services that keep those abilities working.

## The report

Every session ends as a dated report saved outside the folder it describes, in `~/.local/state/dex-lens/reports/`. The next session opens by reading the last one: what got fixed, what still stands, what you decided, what is new. The tool refuses to save a report that makes claims without quoting evidence.

## The recurring check

At sign-off, Lens asks once whether you want it to keep watch on Dex, and on what rhythm. If you already have a routine that reviews updates, it says so and offers to fold the check into that instead. The check says nothing unless Dex has published something new.

## Sharing an idea back

If a session finds something genuinely clever in your system, your AI may offer, once, to share the idea back: a one-page description of the pattern, never your files or data. You see the exact text before anything is sent, and choose the channel: anonymously to Dave, or a GitHub issue you submit yourself. Declining is never revisited.

## The commands, if you ever want them

- `dex-lens inventory <folder>`: what your system declares itself to be, duplicates folded, housekeeping findings at the end. Reads only.
- `dex-lens catalogue`: Dex's published feature list. Lens checks a digital proof on your machine to make sure the list really came from Dex and was not altered. `--since-last` prints only what changed and is silent when nothing has.
- `dex-lens brief <id>`: the rebuild plan for one capability, opening with how to make the change reversible.
- `dex-lens reports`: your saved reports.
- `dex-lens share <card>`: shows exactly what an idea card would send, and sends nothing without `--yes`.

## What leaves your machine

Two things without asking, both declared: the request for Dex's public feature list (the same file everyone gets), and one anonymous note the first time the installer succeeds (the version and machine type, nothing else, never repeated; `DEX_LENS_NO_PING=1` switches it off). Anything else leaves only after you have read the exact text and said yes.

## If something goes wrong

- `dex-lens: command not found`: your terminal does not yet look in `~/.local/bin`; the installer printed the one line to add to `~/.zshrc`.
- The assistant does not seem to know Dex Lens: start a fresh session and ask the sentence above.
- Anything else: [open an issue on GitHub](https://github.com/davekilleen/dex-lens/issues). If something confused you, that is a bug in the product, not in you.