Quickstart
Create your account, set up a team, and start your first collaborative session. Takes about five minutes.
This guide takes you from zero to your first collaborative session. By the end, you'll have a team, a project, and a workspace where you can code together with voice, video, and an AI assistant.
You'll go through:
- Account creation and the Welcome flow
- The Getting Started checklist on your team home
- Creating a project, a Space, and your first session
You can use Stoa entirely in the browser, entirely from the command line, or both. This guide covers all three paths.
1. Create your account
Head to the Stoa landing page and click "Get started". You can sign up with your email or use Google, GitHub, or another OAuth provider.
Tip
You get $50 in free credit when you sign up. No card required. That's roughly 15 one-hour sessions for a team of 8, so you have plenty of room to explore the platform.
2. Walk through the Welcome flow
After signing up, you're guided through an interactive Welcome flow that introduces the platform and sets up your workspace.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Welcome | Animated intro to Stoa |
| Talk | How live transcription works |
| Decide | How collaboration and planning come together |
| Build | How the AI agent helps you write code |
| Setup Workspace | Create your team and pick a theme |
| Invite Team | Generate an invite link to share with teammates |
| Ready | You're all set, redirects to your team home |
If you were already invited to a team, the Invite Team step is skipped automatically.
You can navigate between steps with the arrow keys or the dot indicators at the bottom.
3. Follow the Getting Started checklist
After the Welcome flow, your team home page shows a Getting Started checklist. This walks you through the remaining setup steps like inviting teammates, downloading the desktop app, exploring a Space, and starting your first meeting.
Each step has an action button or link. Steps that depend on real activity (like having more than one team member) complete automatically when the condition is met.
Once you finish all steps, the checklist is replaced by a Quick Actions hub with shortcuts for common tasks: starting a meeting, creating Spaces and projects, inviting members, and navigating to activity, settings, or billing.
4. Create a project
Pick the path that fits your workflow (you only need one):
This is the fastest way to get started.
- On the dashboard, go to the Projects tab.
- Click "Create web project".
- Give it a name.
- If you want your team to have access, pick your team from the "Share with" dropdown.
- Click Create.
Your project is ready. Open it to start adding files.
5. Create a Space
A Space groups related projects together. The important thing about Spaces: everyone in a Space shares one voice/video room, so you can switch between projects without dropping the call.
- Go to your team's dashboard.
- Under Spaces, click "Create New Space".
- Name it and click Create.
Everyone on the team automatically has access.
6. Start a session
Now for the good part.
- Open your Space from the team dashboard.
- You'll land in a session workspace: file explorer on the left, code editor in the center. Opening the Space routes you into the current session or creates a new one.
- Click "Join Call" to connect voice and video.
- Hit
]to open the Agent panel on the right, then click "Start Agent" to bring in the AI assistant. - Start talking and coding. Decisions are captured as you go.
Note
People, Transcript, and Chat are only active when you're in a call. Notes and Recordings remain tied to the session even if you disconnect.
Tip
Voice-to-agent (push-to-talk) works when you're in a call, your mic is unmuted, transcription is connected, and the agent is running.
Note
Create guest invite links from the session menu (web + desktop). The People panel invite UI is currently desktop-only.
That's it. You're in a collaborative session with real-time editing, voice, and an AI that can write code for you.
7. See what was captured
After your session, check out what Stoa recorded:
The Space sidebar defaults to Decision Topics, where the AI groups your conversation into high-level themes and writes structured meeting notes with labeled items (decisions, intents, ideas, open questions). You can also open individual decisions from the command palette (Cmd+K) to review, accept, or reject them.
The Review page shows provenance: click any line of code to see the conversation that produced it.
8. Set up your LLM (CLI users)
If you're using the CLI, configure an Anthropic API key so the CLI can generate decision summaries:
intent configure llmOr pull your team's shared key:
intent configure llm --from-org9. Verify your setup
Run a quick status check:
intent statusYou should see the daemon running, the "main" episode active, and the file watcher monitoring your project.
Tip
If layout shortcuts aren't working while you're typing, press Escape to enter command mode.