# Bittensor Documentation (/docs)

Bittensor is an open network where independent **subnets** produce digital
commodities — compute, inference, storage, prediction — and the chain pays
participants in its token, **TAO**, in proportion to the value they contribute.
**Miners** produce the commodity, **validators** score the miners, **subnet
creators** define the incentive mechanism, and **stakers** back validators with
TAO.

These docs cover the `bittensor` Python SDK and CLI: one install gives you a
library (`import bittensor`) and a command line (`btcli`) that together can
perform every user-facing operation on the chain.

<Callout type="note">
  Coming from the v10 SDK or the standalone `bittensor-cli`? The API changed
  substantially in v11 — see [Migrating from v9/v10](/docs/migration) for exact
  old-to-new mappings.
</Callout>

## Where to go [#where-to-go]

<Cards>
  <Card title="Quickstart" href="/docs/quickstart" description="Install, connect, first query, first transaction — in five minutes." />

  <Card title="The SDK" href="/docs/sdk" description="The five core primitives — Subtensor, Wallet, Balance, intents, results — on one page." />

  <Card title="For agents" href="/docs/agents" description="How an agent discovers, previews, and safely executes any chain operation." />

  <Card title="Transactions" href="/docs/tx" description="Every state-changing operation, one page each, generated from the SDK." />

  <Card title="Queries" href="/docs/query" description="Every chain read, one page each, generated from the SDK." />

  <Card title="Errors" href="/docs/errors" description="Every failure carries a machine-readable code and a remediation hint." />

  <Card title="Concepts" href="/docs/concepts/network" description="The network, wallets, money, the client, and the transaction model." />

  <Card title="Migrating from v9/v10" href="/docs/migration" description="Exact mappings from the legacy SDK and btcli to the unified v11 package." />
</Cards>

## Install [#install]

Requires Python 3.10–3.13. Using [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/):

```bash
uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install bittensor
```

This installs both the `btcli` command and the `bittensor` Python package.

## Machine-readable everything [#machine-readable-everything]

If you are an agent (or building one), you never need to scrape these pages.
See [For agents → Searching these docs](/docs/agents#searching-these-docs)
for the curl/grep recipes.

* [`/llms.txt`](/llms.txt) — curated index; every docs link in it is already
  raw markdown (`content.md`).
* [`/llms-full.txt`](/llms-full.txt) — entire docs corpus in one file (for
  `rg`, not for stuffing into context).
* Every page as raw markdown: `/llms.mdx/docs/<slug>/content.md` (also linked
  from each page’s copy-markdown control).
* [`/catalog/intents.json`](/catalog/intents.json) — every transaction with its JSON schema, signer, `markdown_url`, and summary.
* [`/catalog/reads.json`](/catalog/reads.json) — every query with parameters, `markdown_url`, and docs.
* [`/catalog/errors.json`](/catalog/errors.json) — semantic codes under `.codes`, chain names under `.chain_errors`; each has remediation + `markdown_url`.
* Chain Rust source: [`/code/search.json?q=…`](/code/search.json?q=do_move_stake) to search,
  [`/code/index.json`](/code/index.json) to list, `/code/raw/<repo-path>` to fetch.
* The same catalogs, live from the tool itself: `btcli tools` on the CLI, `bt.intents.list_tools()` in Python.