How to set up MetaMask Agent Wallet and make your first trade

Setting up MetaMask Agent Wallet takes three moves: install the mm CLI, add skills to your AI agent, and paste one prompt. Your agent then walks you through signing in and choosing your safety settings. Once you fund the wallet, it can swap tokens from a plain-language request. Perps and prediction markets add a funding step of their own, covered in their guides. This guide follows the official quickstart from install to first trade.

This is a setup guide, not an explainer. For what an agentic wallet is, see what is an agentic wallet. For how the transaction lifecycle and security pipeline work, see how agentic wallets work and agentic wallet security.

Before you start

You need:

• Node.js 22.18 or later. Check with node --version.

• An AI agent that supports skills, such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, or Hermes Agent. (No skills? Step 3 covers a terminal-only path.)

• Funds you can send from another wallet or an exchange.

Step 1: Install the CLI

The mm CLI is how your agent signs in, checks balances, and sends transactions.

npm install -g @metamask/agent-wallet@latest

Yarn, pnpm, and Bun work too (yarn global add, pnpm add -g, or bun add --global, with the same package). Run mm doctor afterward to confirm the CLI version and skill compatibility. Hints about missing skills are expected until step 2.

Step 2: Add skills to your agent

Skills teach your agent which mm commands to run and when to ask for your confirmation before moving funds.

npx skills add MetaMask/agent-skills

Step 3: Start setup with one prompt

Open your agent and paste:

Set up MetaMask Agent Wallet: help me pick a sign-in method, wallet mode, and trading mode, then show my address.

Your agent asks which sign-in method you want, then runs the setup commands. The next two steps cover the choices it asks you to make.

Prefer the terminal, or running an agent without skills? Run mm doctor, mm login, mm init, then mm doctor again. The CLI setup guide covers each command.

Step 4: Sign in with one method, and keep using it

Google, email, and MetaMask Mobile QR each load a different server wallet address, even if you use the same address for email and Google login (when you choose Mobile QR, no email address is used). Pick one method, use it every time, and run mm wallet address after each sign-in to confirm you're looking at the address you funded.

For Google or email, your agent opens the Agent Wallet dashboard in your browser. Sign in, click Authorize, then copy the CLI token from the browser and paste it into your terminal if prompted. Email sign-in adds a verification code from your inbox: enter it in the browser before you click Authorize. That code is not the CLI token, so don't paste it into the terminal.

For MetaMask Mobile QR, your agent shows a QR code in the terminal. Open MetaMask Mobile, scan the code, and approve the connection in the app.

Step 5: Choose your wallet mode and trading mode

Your agent asks how it should hold funds:

If you bring your own wallet, set the MM_MNEMONIC environment variable rather than passing the phrase on the command line:

export MM_MNEMONIC = ""

With a server wallet, your agent also asks for a trading mode:

Guard Mode is the recommended choice for most users. You can change modes later with mm wallet trading-mode set guard or mm wallet trading-mode set beast. For the full guardrail-by-guardrail comparison, see trading modes.

Step 6: Fund your wallet

When setup finishes, your agent shows your wallet address. Confirm it matches what you expect, then send funds from another wallet or an exchange. You can ask your agent for it anytime:

Show my wallet address and balance.

Two things to know before you send:

• Balances are per chain. Fund the chain you plan to trade on. Run mm chains list to see supported networks and which features (swap, predict, perps) each one supports.

• Check the chain's coverage. On chains marked "No" in the Transaction Shield column of the supported chains list, threat scanning is unavailable. Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon are among the covered chains.

Before your first transaction, run mm doctor and confirm both authenticated and initialized show true. If either is false, follow the hints in the output, then run it again.

Step 7: Make your first trade

Ask your agent for a small swap:

Swap 0.01 ETH to USDC on Base.

Your agent fetches a quote, shows you the route and output, then executes after you confirm. If you want a lower-stakes warm-up first, ask "What's my USDC balance?" or "What's the current price of ETH?" Read-only requests run without a confirmation prompt.

Guard Mode asks for your input in two places early on. You're prompted to set your rolling 24-hour outflow limit on your first transaction, and anything outside your allowlists or that limit pauses for two-factor approval. Your agent can't proceed on a flagged transaction until you respond. Approvals arrive as an email link if you signed in with Google or email, or as a push notification in MetaMask Mobile if you used QR (check the notifications menu if no push shows up).

If setup stalls

Start with mm doctor. It reports whether you're signed in and initialized, and its hints say what to fix. For the common error codes:

The troubleshooting page covers more cases.

Where to go next

Once your first trade lands, pick an asset class. For leveraged positions on Hyperliquid, see how to trade perps with MetaMask Agent Wallet. For same-chain swaps and cross-chain bridges, see how to swap and bridge tokens. For Polymarket, see how to trade prediction markets. The docs also cover yield vaults and x402 payments.