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Getting Started

This guide takes you from a fresh install to your first grounded answer — asked in your own AI client — in about ten minutes. The shape of a real setup is: sign in, add a domain profile and a knowledge folder to your Library, select them into a Context, then connect the AI client you already use.

Prerequisites​

  • The NeatContext desktop app — installed and able to open (Windows or macOS).
  • A supported AI client, installed and signed in — one of Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, or ChatGPT Desktop (see Connecting AI Clients). NeatContext brings no model — your AI client brings its own, so there is no API key to enter in NeatContext.
  • (Optional) Node.js 18+ — only if you plan to run the incident demo's mock systems or develop your own extensions. Just using the bundled extensions needs no Node install — NeatContext runs them on its own bundled runtime.

Step 1 — Sign in​

The first time you open NeatContext you're asked to sign in or create an account (email + password; a verification code is emailed to you).

Signing in identifies your subscription — your actual work (profiles, knowledge, Contexts) stays on your machine. See Account.

Step 2 — Take stock of the window​

NeatContext opens on the Contexts page. The main areas, reachable from the navigation, are:

  • Contexts — your context workspaces, one per tab. Each Context selects its own profiles, knowledge folders, and extensions, and has a Connect this context panel with a card per AI client.
  • Library — your reusable domain profiles, knowledge folders, and extensions. This is where you author and link resources; Contexts just select them.
  • Extensions — install, connect, and manage read-only tool connectors.
  • Context Activity — a per-Context log of what connected AI clients did.
  • Account — your sign-in and subscription.

Step 3 — Add a domain profile to your Library​

A domain profile tells your AI how your team thinks: what it owns, what to check first, what never to touch.

  1. Open Library → Domain profiles.
  2. Click New (starter template, opens the editor) — or Import to link an existing profile .md file in place. A linked file stays where it is, so you can keep profiles in a git repo.
  3. Fill in at least three sections: what you own, first checks, and dangerous actions. Make sure the front matter parses (id, name, type). Save.

No profile yet? Start from this minimal template:

---
id: my-team
name: My Team
type: team
owner: My Team
---

# My Team

## What we own
- (services / systems your team is responsible for)

## First checks during an incident
1. (the first thing your team looks at)

## Dangerous actions (do NOT do without approval)
- (irreversible or high-blast-radius actions)

## Response style
- Separate facts from hypotheses, and cite the runbook you relied on.

Step 4 — Add a knowledge folder to your Library​

Under Library → Knowledge folders, click Add folder and pick a folder of your team's docs — runbooks, TSGs, postmortems. NeatContext references it in place (nothing is copied or uploaded); when you connect an AI client, that client searches the folder itself and cites the documents it uses. Details in Knowledge Bases.

Step 5 — Build a Context​

Open Contexts and select (or rename) a Context tab. A Context is a named selection of Library resources for one operational scope.

  1. Under Domain profiles, choose Add from Library and pick the profile from Step 3. Mark one profile as active.
  2. Under Knowledge folders, add the folder from Step 4.
  3. (Optional) Under Extensions, enable any read-only connectors this Context should offer — see Step 6.

The Context page shows exactly which profiles, folders, and tools this Context will hand off, and reminds you that everything stays local until you connect.

Step 6 — Add an extension (optional but recommended)​

Extensions give your AI tools for your real systems — read an incident, search logs, list deployments. Open Extensions:

  • The bundled PagerDuty and Datadog connectors are ready to connect.
  • Install from folder installs an extension from a folder; Create builds a read-only connector for any JSON HTTP API without writing code.

Enable an extension, then select it into your Context. The incident demo ships a complete extension plus three mock systems for it to talk to — the fastest way to see tools in action without touching production.

Step 7 — Connect your AI client​

  1. On the Context page, find the Connect this context panel.
  2. Click Connect on the card for the client you use (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, or ChatGPT Desktop).
  3. A new session of that client opens. If it asks, trust the folder it opens and approve the neatcontext tools.

There is no model to configure — the client brings its own. See Connecting AI Clients for what each client does on Connect.

Step 8 — Ask your first question, in your AI client​

In the session that just opened, ask a question your profile and knowledge can answer. For an operational Context:

Please use NeatContext mcp server to analyze this incident: <link or ID>.
What should we check first, and what's the safe action?

Your AI client answers using the Context you built, and ends with a Sources list of the files and tools it used. Click a source to check the answer against your own runbook.

Back in NeatContext, open Context Activity for this Context to see what was served and which tools ran.

Where to go next​