Welcome Wizard (BeakerBot)
The welcome wizard is BeakerBot's guided setup. It starts right after you sign in, asks how you will use ResearchOS, and walks you through the few choices worth making early, like your profile, your notebook folder, and recovery. Most of it is scripted, so it is quick and predictable, and you can ask BeakerBot a question whenever you like. Anything you skip stays waiting for you in Settings.
Why a wizard at all
A research notebook has a handful of decisions that are easy to make on day one and annoying to untangle later, such as where your data lives and how you get back into your account. The wizard puts those in front of you in a sensible order, explains why each one matters, and then gets out of the way. Only the essentials are required, and everything else can wait.
Two tracks
Early on BeakerBot asks how you will use the app, so the wizard can skip what does not apply to you.
- New researcher. The shorter path for working on your own. If you arrived with an invite to a lab, you are placed on the member version of this path automatically. It never offers to create a lab, and the last step offers to take you to the lab you were invited to.
- New lab head. The same path plus a lab step early on, and extra steps for lab backups and inviting your people.
If you pick the wrong track you can change your answer, and the wizard adjusts its remaining steps to match.
The steps
Three steps are required, because the app cannot work well without them. The rest are optional, and you can answer later on any of them.
- Welcome and role. A short hello, then the question about how you will use ResearchOS. You can also say you have a question first.
- Your profile (required). Pick a handle, which is how colleagues find you. It is the only required field on that card. Everything else there is optional and editable later.
- Your lab (lab heads, required). Name the lab you are setting up.
- Notebook folder (required). Choose the folder on your own disk where your notebook lives. Your notebook stays local to that folder unless you choose to share or back it up.
- Account recovery. Recovery is tied to how you sign in, and the one-time recovery words exist only when an account is first created. This step explains that and can show you where recovery lives in Settings.
- Lab backups (lab heads). Where the lab's shared data is backed up.
- Invite your people (lab heads). Points you at the real invite control so you can bring your lab in.
- Integrations. Personal backup (Drive, Box, or OneDrive), the phone companion, calendar feeds, and ORCID works. Connect any of them now or leave them for later.
- The Network. Whether to list yourself or your lab in the public directory. Looking at the page first and keeping it private are both fine choices.
- Anything else. An open moment to ask BeakerBot questions, such as where to pair your phone or who can see your data.
- Finish. A checklist of what you did and what you marked for later.
Show me where
When a step is about a real control, such as the backup settings or the invite button, BeakerBot offers a Show me where (or Take me there) button. It opens the actual page and spotlights the control, so you learn where it lives rather than only reading about it. Listing, connecting, and sending always happen on the real control, never inside the chat, so you can see exactly what you are agreeing to.
Asking BeakerBot questions
You can type a question at any step. BeakerBot can point you to the right control and search the help guide for you. It does not read the contents of your pages, so your notebook stays private from it, and it never changes a setting on its own.
Your free starter credit
Live BeakerBot answers use AI, which costs real money to run, so new accounts get a free starter credit. The wizard shows it as a meter in tokens, drawn from your live balance. Whatever you do not use stays with you as BeakerBot credit after setup. If the credit runs out, live answers pause, but the wizard still finishes for free.
Skipping, resuming, and reopening
You can skip setup once the required steps are done. Your progress is saved for your account on this device, so closing the app mid-wizard is safe. Required steps are checked against your real account, so something you already finished is not asked again.
To come back later, open Settings, go to Help and updates, and press Finish setup. The wizard reopens at the first step you have not decided on yet, so anything you marked for later is still reachable.