Skip to content
Get started

Getting started

This tutorial takes you from a new account to a working workflow in production. You sign up, answer a few onboarding questions, then describe a small automation to Orbi, the assistant, and watch it build, run, and save it.

Before you begin

You need a LiveContext account, on the cloud or on a self-hosted Community Edition (CE) instance. The tutorial takes about ten minutes and needs no connected app. It uses one AI step, which spends a few credits.

Sign up and onboarding

Visiting any app page while signed out sends you to log in, then back to the page you asked for. After you sign in, LiveContext routes you through onboarding if you have not finished or skipped it yet, or if your email is not verified. Whether you complete it or skip it, you end up in chat.

Cloud: verify your email, then three short steps

Cloud onboarding steps
StepWhat it asksRequired
0. Verify Your EmailOnly if your address is not verified yet. A 6-digit code is sent automatically. It is submitted as soon as you type or paste the sixth digit.Yes, cannot be skipped
1. Let's get to know youDisplay Name, your role (choose Other to type your own), and company size. An unchecked box offers LiveContext news by email.Only the display name
2. What do you want to automate first?Your main goal, and which tools you already use.The main goal (tools are optional)
3. Almost thereWhat you automate with today, and how you heard about LiveContext.Both questions

The email code expires after 10 minutes and allows 3 attempts. Resend Code becomes available again after 60 seconds, up to 5 codes per hour. If the code went to the wrong address, use Not your address? Sign out.

Display name rules

Display name rules
RuleDetail
Length3 to 30 characters.
UniquenessCase-insensitive across all users, checked about half a second after you stop typing.
CharactersLatin letters (including common accented letters such as é or ü), digits, spaces, hyphens, and underscores. Other characters are removed as you type. If you paste an email address, only the part before the @ is kept.
VisibilityVisible to other users.

What you see when you arrive

On the cloud, two windows can open over the chat, one after the other:

  • Welcome gift (Free plan): every account starts on the Free plan, which gives you 1,000 monthly credits. They pay for workflow runs, and for chat and agent turns on the models marked Free. They refill automatically at the start of every month, and no card is needed. Other models, web search, and generation need a credit top-up or a paid plan. See Plans & billing.
  • Apps picked for you: up to four marketplace apps chosen from your onboarding answers (popular apps when nothing matches). It also appears when you skipped the questions. Choose Browse the marketplace or Maybe later.

The chat itself opens empty, with Orbi's greeting and five suggestion chips under the composer (for example Summarize my inbox each morning). A chip fills the composer with a detailed request but does not send it, so you can edit it first.

The Get set up checklist

The sidebar shows a Get set up card with four tasks. Each one ticks itself as soon as it is done, wherever you did it, and the card goes away once all four are complete:

Tasks in the Get set up checklist
TaskWhy it matters
Connect an appYour agents can then read and act in it (Gmail, Notion, Slack, and so on).
Talk to OrbiAsk for anything: Orbi builds agents, workflows, and apps for you.
Create an agent or a workflowSomething that works for you, even when you are not there.
Get reached outside the appApprovals and questions arrive on Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, or Teams.

Each open task links to the place where you do it. When the sidebar is collapsed, the card shrinks to a counter such as 2/4.

Self-hosted (CE): the setup wizard

A Community Edition instance has no email code. The first time an administrator signs in to an instance that is not set up yet, a 5-step setup wizard opens. Users who are not administrators go straight to chat.

Steps of the self-hosted setup wizard
StepWhat it configures
1. Cloud connectionLink the instance to LiveContext Cloud (recommended). Next stays disabled until the link is made; use Skip to continue without it.
2. AI providersYour own API keys for model providers. Optional.
3. CLI providersCommand-line coding agents: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Mistral Vibe. Optional.
4. Platform credentialsCredentials for third-party platforms your workflows will call. Optional.
5. DoneA recap, then chat.

Skip for now at the top of the wizard ends it at once, and warns you if no AI source is configured yet. The welcome gift and suggested apps do not appear on a self-hosted instance. See Self-hosting for what each step unlocks.

Tutorial: your first workflow

You will build a three-step workflow: a manual trigger, an AI step that writes three focus tips, and a step that saves them to a table. You do not need to know any node types or syntax.

  1. Open a new chat
    In the sidebar, choose New chat. The composer at the bottom reads Message Orbi....
    Result:an empty conversation with Orbi's greeting.
  2. Describe the job
    Type the request below, then press Enter:
    Your message
    Build a workflow I can start manually. An AI step writes three short tips for staying focused at work. Then save the tips, with today's date, as a new row in a table called Focus tips.
    Result: Orbi starts working. Each action appears as a tool card in the thread, and the workflow appears as a diagram block with a trigger, an AI step, and a table step. If the Focus tips table does not exist yet, Orbi creates it as part of the build.
  3. Open the workflow
    Click the diagram block (or choose Open in its menu).
    Result: the workflow opens in the side panel, next to the conversation, with its nodes connected left to right. Click a node to see its settings.
  4. Refine it in plain language
    Ask for a change the way you would ask a teammate, for example “Make it five tips instead of three.”
    Result: Orbi edits the existing workflow instead of starting over, and tells you what it changed. The diagram updates.
  5. Run it
    Ask “Run it.” You can also use the Run button in the workflow toolbar.
    Result:a run trace appears, step by step, with each node's output. If a step fails, the trace shows which one and why. Ask “Why did that fail?” and Orbi reads the run and proposes a fix.
  6. Check the result
    Open Tables in the sidebar, then the Focus tips table.
    Result:one new row holds the tips and the date. Every run is also recorded, so you can reopen it later and inspect each node's inputs and outputs.
  7. Save a version and set it as production
    In the workflow panel, click Save, open Version History, and choose Set as production on the version you just saved.
    Result: the version is tagged production and the workflow is live. Later edits do not change what runs until you set a newer version as production, so when you add a schedule or a webhook, save again and move production to that version.

How data moves between steps

Connecting two steps sets their order. It does not pass data. To use an earlier step's result, a step references it with a template expression of the form {{type:label.output.field}}: type is the kind of node (such as trigger, agent, mcp for an integration, or core), label is the step's name, and field is the piece of output you want.

Example expressions
{{agent:write_tips.output.response}}
{{trigger:contact_form.output.email}}

The first reads the text an AI step named “Write tips” generated. The second reads the email field a visitor submitted to a form trigger named “Contact form”. Expressions are resolved when the step runs, and a step can only read steps that ran before it on its path. A reference to a step that has not run resolves to an empty value. See Expressions & variables for the full syntax.

Troubleshooting

Common problems when getting started
SymptomCauseFix
A verification code is refusedThe code expires after 10 minutes and allows 3 attempts.Select Resend Code (available again after 60 seconds, up to 5 codes per hour) and type the new code.
The code went to the wrong addressYou signed up with a different email.Use Not your address? Sign out and sign up again with the right address.
Skip for now stays disabledA display name is required first, and it must be available.Enter a display name of 3 to 30 characters that nobody else uses.
A run stops with an insufficient-credits noticeThe AI step uses a model your credits do not cover.On the Free plan, pick a model marked Free for the step, or add credits.
A step receives an empty valueIts expression names a step that has not run on its path, or uses the wrong label.Check the label in the expression against the step name, and connect the step after the one it reads.
The workflow never runs on its ownA workflow only starts when you run it, unless it has a trigger such as a schedule or a webhook.Ask Orbi to add a trigger, then save and set the new version as production.

Related pages