Your first session

This is the whole path for a beta tester, in the order you will meet it. Plan on fifteen minutes.

You need: your invitation email, a desktop browser, Node.js 20 or later, and a coding agent you already use — Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI or Cursor. No AI provider key: your agent is the model.

1. Sign in

Go to staves.io/beta/access and enter the address that was invited. You get a single-use sign-in link by email; there is no password. An address without an invitation is refused with This account does not have an active beta invitation — ask us, rather than trying another address.

You land in your workspace. An empty workspace is the normal starting state.

2. Make a board with your agent

1. Choose New board → Use my coding agent.
2. Pick where you are starting: An existing project, a new idea, or Interview me in my coding agent (no repository needed). Add a line of starting context if you like — name the one workflow you mean, such as how a disputed charge gets resolved.
3. Prepare agent handoff, then Copy agent setup and request.
4. Open your coding agent in the project directory and paste it into the chat.

The copied text carries a single-use connection code that expires after ten minutes. If it expires, prepare a new handoff; nothing was granted. The connection it makes can create one board and cannot see your other boards.

Prefer the terminal? npx @staves/cli connect in the project directory does the same thing with a browser approval. See Bring in a coding agent.

3. Let the agent connect itself

The agent runs npx @staves/cli connect itself. That registers Staves for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and Cursor in the project, and writes a short managed block into CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md and GEMINI.md. It does not upload your repository.

Your client then has to load the new tools. This is the one step the agent cannot do for you:

• Claude Code: open /mcp and approve or reconnect Staves.
• Codex: trust the project, restart the MCP connection or session, then check /mcp.
• Gemini CLI: /mcp reload.
• Cursor: enable Staves in MCP settings.

The agent should tell you which applies. Until the tools load, it can keep working through the CLI (npx @staves/cli tool …) and should say that it is doing so. Access is proven when it calls staves_brief on your board and reads it back — not when a config file exists or doctor passes.

4. What you should see

• A short list of what the agent can do with the board: describe the code, interview you, assess gaps, test scenarios, review as each role.
• The board’s link, as soon as the board exists. Open it; jobs arrive in batches while you talk.
• Questions, where the code cannot tell the agent something. An open question is the board working as intended, not a failure. Answer the ones you can.

The first pass is a draft for you to challenge. Anything the agent inferred about people is marked as its inference until someone confirms it.

5. Come back to it

On any board, Coding agent in the header prepares a scoped request: the whole workflow or the jobs you choose, plus what you want to do next. Copy to coding agent, paste it into your project’s chat, and the dialog shows Received by the agent once it picks the request up.

If a different project or agent needs this board, use Board options → Connect a coding agent → Connect another agent. That connection can read and contribute to this board only.

To take the board somewhere else — a brief, a drawing, the data — use Board options → Export…. See Share and hand off.

If something is off

Run npx @staves/cli doctor in the project. It names what is registered, what is stale and the command that fixes each line. The common cases are in When it does not work.

Tell us

Every hosted board has a Feedback button. Use it for anything: a wrong word on the board, a step above that did not match what you saw, a moment you did not know what to do next. The last one is the most useful to us.

What we keep and who handles it is in Your data in the beta.