Create your first bot

Before you start

Install and sign in to at least one supported agent CLI. When one already works, the welcome uses it without a step; when none does, the welcome asks you to connect one, with Claude first and the other ways folded under Other ways. You can also connect one later from App settings → Agent engines.

Your first bot is your Chief of Staff

A new install starts with one bot: MengBot, in chrome, your helper for everything in the app and your Chief of Staff. Its first message lists what is left to set up, and it can do each step with you. Rename it or change its color in Bot settings like any other bot. MengBot is never deleted: to take it off the sidebar, choose Hide from sidebar in its menu, or turn off Show MengBot in the sidebar in Settings → General. An install that already had bots before MengBot arrived gets one beside them: its Chief of Staff stays as it was, and if it had none, MengBot becomes it. The first time you open the app with MengBot, click its picture to change its name, color, look or picture before adding it. It does the work itself and adds a specialist bot on its own when a job needs one, telling you in one line.

Create the bot

1. Select New or share in the sidebar (or press Ctrl+N, ⌘N on a Mac).
2. Choose New bot.

The bot is made at once from your saved defaults, with a name no other bot has and the default AI, and its chat opens ready for your first message. If no AI is connected yet, the bot is made without one and uses the first AI you connect. If making it fails, the chat says why and no bot is left behind. On a team's Cloud the bot is shared with the team, reports to the person its department reports to (or to you), and opens your own private chat with it.

Shape it later: Set me up under its greeting lets you describe the job in one sentence, and everything else (name, picture, AI, instructions, working folder, permissions) is in its Bot settings. The working folder matters: it becomes the bot's starting context and limits accidental edits elsewhere. Use a dedicated project folder for coding, research, or content work.

To start from a ready-made bot instead, open Templates and choose Add on one: you review its settings, and pick a preset under Starting role, before it is created.

Set defaults for future bots

Open App settings → General → Defaults for new bots → Edit. In Identity, Random female name and Random male name insert a local suggestion into the editable name field; the lists contain 4,944 female and 3,897 male names from stdlib's English-language Moby Word II datasets. Save the identity, model, instructions, access preferences, memory, skills, and routines you want future bots to start with. Leave the name empty for a random suggested name each time.

Saving defaults does not change existing bots or start routines. New bots start at Full access unless the saved defaults pick another level. A saved level applies to the new bot at once, with no confirmation; local-computer Auto needs your OK, so a bot whose defaults ask for it starts on Ask and says how to turn it on.

These full templates apply to New bot, the ready-made bots in Templates, and the HTTP bot-creation endpoint. Bot-driven team setup applies at once with an Undo; it does not automatically copy template memory, skills, or routines.

Give it a useful first task

Start with a concrete outcome and the constraints that matter:

Review this project, run the tests, and explain the three highest-impact issues.
Do not change files yet. Link each finding to the relevant file.

Once you trust the diagnosis, ask the bot to implement the change. This keeps review and mutation as separate, easy-to-check steps.

Tune the bot

Open Bot settings to change its name, avatar, instructions, engine, model, working folder, and computer setup. Different bots can use different engines and folders at the same time.

Next steps