Getting started
Reach a running gateway and dashboard, then create your account.
This guide gets you to a running system and a signed-in account. The gateway is the service that holds the WhatsApp connection and serves the API; the dashboard is the web app where you sign in and manage things.
1. Get the gateway and dashboard running
You need both services up before you can sign in. Pick the path that matches what you're doing:
| Your situation | Follow |
|---|---|
| Running it on your own machine to develop or try it out | Local development |
| Deploying it to a server | Deploying |
Either path leaves you with the dashboard on http://localhost:3000 (locally) or
your own URL, and the gateway reachable from it. Come back here once it loads.
2. Create your account
Open the dashboard and sign up with an email and password.
Every new account is a normal user. You don't get any platform-wide admin powers just by being the first to sign up — that's granted separately by an operator (see Create the first admin).
If sign-up is turned off, an operator has disabled self-registration and must create your account for you. See Deploying.
Your personal organization
Every resource in the gateway — a WhatsApp number, an API key, a webhook — belongs to an organization (a container that owns resources and can have several members), not to you directly. So when you sign up, the dashboard automatically creates a personal organization for you and makes you its owner.
For solo use you never think about this: your personal org is just "your stuff", and every number and key you create lands in it. It matters once you want to share a connection — sharing means inviting someone into the org that owns it. See organizations.
Next
Your account exists but no phone is connected yet. Connect a number is next.