getting started

getting an agent running takes four steps, and only one of them involves a decision: sign in, choose where you want to talk to it, pick a plan, and say hello. this page walks all four, tells you what to say first, and says plainly what happens if accounts are not open the day you read this.

how do i get an account?

go to instaclaw.io and sign in with Google. that is the account: no separate password, nothing to install.

if you have an invite code, the sign-in page has a place for it (the small "have an invite code?" line under the button); it is read before you sign in with Google, so use it there rather than looking for it afterwards.

if you land on a waitlist instead, that is not an error. new accounts open in cohorts, and until your cohort is called you will see the waitlist page rather than the setup steps. join it, and the steps below are what happens when your turn comes. we would rather tell you that here than have you hunt for a button that is not there yet.

where do i talk to it?

wherever you already are. your agent lives in iMessage, Telegram and the web dashboard, and it is the same agent with the same memory in all three, so this is a convenience choice rather than a commitment. during setup you connect at least one:

• Telegram is the quickest: message the InstaClaw bot and you are talking.
• iMessage means texting a normal phone number from your own phone, blue bubbles and all.
• the web dashboard is the one to use at a desk, and it also shows what your agent has been doing.

the details for each, including how to run your agent under its own Telegram name, are on channels.

which plan should i pick?

every plan gets the same machine. they differ in how much your agent can do in a day. start with Starter unless you already know you will be giving it real work all day; you can move up later and the price you started on stays yours. plans and billing has the numbers.

what should i say first?

tell it who you are. it starts knowing nothing about you, which is a feature rather than a gap: everything it learns is learned from you. a good first message looks like this, in your own words:

i'm sam. i run a small design studio, i live in lisbon, and i mostly need help keeping up with email and planning my week. call me sam.

then ask it something real:

what do you know about me so far?

it answers from what it has written to memory, and you can watch that memory grow from here. the more you tell it in the first week, the less you will ever have to repeat.

what does it not do on day one?

it does not know your calendar, your inbox or your accounts until you connect them. those are skills you switch on, and some ask you to sign in to the service they connect to. and it does not know your preferences until you state them: an agent that guessed would be guessing about you.

what next

• channels: the three places you can talk to it, and how to set each up
• skills: the things it already knows how to do, and how to turn them on
• your agent's computer: the machine it runs on, with the numbers
• when something breaks: what to try if it goes quiet, in order
• referrals: if a friend sent you, they get $10 and you got 25% off
• command center: where your agent shows what it has learned