Getting Started

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Creating an Account

When you open sideBar for the first time, you’ll be asked to create an account. Tap Create Account, enter your email address, and follow the verification link that arrives in your inbox. If you already have an account, tap Sign In and enter your credentials.

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Connecting a Provider

Before you can chat with sideBar, you need to connect an AI provider. sideBar supports three: Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. You’ll need an API key from whichever one you choose. sideBar will walk you through this step automatically when you first sign in. Choose your provider, paste your API key into the field, and confirm. Once connected, you’re ready to start. If you don’t have an API key yet, see API Keys for step-by-step instructions for each provider. Chatting with sideBar isn’t available without one but you can still use it to take notes, keep track of tasks, save websites to read later and upload files.

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The Onboarding Conversation

Once your chosen AI provider is connected, sideBar starts a short calibration conversation in Chat before feature discovery begins. This is where sideBar works out how it should collaborate with you. Before the first question, sideBar shows a short intro card that explains what this final setup step is for and why it matters. The calibration is lightweight and mostly tap-based. sideBar asks:

• What would you most like help with first?
• How would you like it to work with you?
• How should it show up?

From those answers, sideBar sets its initial identity and soul, chooses its own name, and confirms it with you. The name is chosen to fit the identity and soul it has already authored for itself. You can accept the name or ask it to try another one. When you tap Hello!, sideBar sends its first message in Chat, introduces itself, and points you to the Explore sideBar surface at the top of the conversation. That surface is there to help you discover what sideBar can do, and you can dismiss it whenever you want. After that, sideBar moves straight into discovery so you can explore the app and get to your first real outcome quickly. If you stop partway through, sideBar resumes from the next missing calibration step the next time you return to Chat. Provider recovery still shows up in Chat, while permission follow-up lives in Settings. Onboarding is only complete after calibration is finished and sideBar has either helped you reach a real first outcome or you finish the discovery follow-up after setup.

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Finding Your Way Around

After onboarding, you land in the main app. The navigation bar sits at the bottom of the screen on iPhone, or in the left rail on iPad, Mac, and in a web browser. It has six sections:

• Chat: where you talk to sideBar and get things done.
• Notes: create and organise notes sideBar can read and reference.
• Tasks: manage to-dos manually or ask sideBar to create them for you.
• Websites: save and browse webpages sideBar can reference.
• Files: upload documents you want sideBar to read, summarize, or work with.
• Skills Store: browse and install additional capabilities.

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Starting a Conversation

Tap the text field at the bottom of the Chat screen and type anything you want to ask or do. You don’t need special commands, sideBar understands plain language. Try asking it to remind you of something, summarise a topic, or help you draft a note. sideBar has access to context from your device automatically: your timezone, current location (if you’ve granted permission), and local weather. You don’t need to tell it where you are or what time it is if you don’t want to.

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Extending sideBar with Skills

sideBar ships with a solid set of built-in capabilities, but the Skills Store lets you go further. Browse and install additional skills, then manage them from Settings → Skills. Once a skill is enabled, sideBar uses it automatically. You don’t need to invoke it by name.