The first-run wizard, step by step

Charyl narrates her own setup, one question at a time, whether you’re on the appliance or self-hosting. This guide walks every step, in the order it actually runs, for both the Charyl Cloud path and the bring-your-own-keys path.

How it works

• Progress is shown as a running time estimate — “about N minutes left” — rather than a raw step count.
• Every step is resumable. Close the tab and come back to it.
• A free-text box on every step lets you skip the form and just tell Charyl what you want instead.
• Everything is skippable except three required steps: setting your home’s password, choosing what Charyl handles, and choosing how she runs.

The steps

1. Welcome

   A short capability preview from Charyl herself — three cards showing what she can do, about twenty seconds.

2. Name your home

   A nickname and a street address. Both are required; there’s no default.

3. Set your home's password

   This becomes your login. User-facing copy keeps this plain — no “admin,” no “credential.”

4. What Charyl handles

   Smart Home and Assets are pre-checked. A quick question about horses surfaces the Barn module if it applies to you.

5. How should Charyl run?

   Charyl Cloud, or your own AI keys — presented with equal weight. Neither option is marked “recommended.”

6. Path-specific setup

   Branches depending on your previous answer — see the two paths below.

7. Home Assistant

   Only shown if you enabled Smart Home. See Connect Home Assistant for the full shape of this step.

8. Pair a mobile device

   A QR code, skippable — see Pair your phone.

9. Capability tour

   One card per module you enabled, plus a short tour of Charyl herself.

10. First action

    Charyl suggests one thing to try — adding your first asset or device, depending on what you enabled.

11. Done

    Straight to your dashboard.

If you chose Charyl Cloud

1. Charyl Cloud’s standard terms, plus a plain-language note on rate limits.
2. Sign in — the same browser tab redirects you to the sign-in page and back; no popup, no embedded window.
3. A checkout step exists in the flow but is dormant today — nothing is charged.
4. Pairing completes automatically. You never see or copy a key.

If you brought your own keys

Accepting every default here needs exactly one piece of information: an AI provider key.

1. Terms that make clear your keys are your responsibility.
2. Paste one AI provider key. An “advanced setup” section, collapsed by default, lets you add a fallback provider or assign different providers to different capabilities.
3. A web-search key, for product research — skipped by default; add it later if you want it.
4. An embedding provider — local by default, no prompt unless you open advanced setup.
5. Instructions for reaching your home remotely — skippable, only needed if you want mobile access from outside your network.

Connecting Home Assistant

Charyl looks before she asks. If no external Home Assistant is found on your network, a bundled copy she’s already running gets adopted silently — you’re only asked whether to bring in the devices it finds. If she finds one that looks like yours, she asks, then walks you through it: a yes/no/not-sure question, discovery with a manual-address fallback, a guided access-token page, an automatic connection test, and a preview of devices before any are brought in. See Connect Home Assistant for the full walkthrough.

After “Done”

Charyl doesn’t hand you a list of everything you haven’t set up yet. She gives one welcome message shaped by what you enabled, offers exactly one thing to try, and only grows more proactive if you respond well to that first offer. After that, at most once per conversation, she may point out one gap — “want me to add your water heater?” — never a running tally, never a completeness score. Say “I don’t have one,” or decline a few times, and she stops asking about that item for good. A single “stop suggesting setup” turns off the nudges entirely.