Quick Start: Your First 5 Minutes
You've installed Vellum. You've opened it. There's a little creature on your screen asking who you are.
Now what?
Here's what your first 5 minutes look like. Think of it less like a tutorial and more like meeting someone new.
Minute 1: Say hello
Your assistant starts with a blank slate. No name, no personality, no idea who you are. It's going to ask you a few things:
- What's your name? So it knows what to call you.
- What should it call itself? You're naming a digital entity. No pressure. (Just kidding, there's a little pressure. This name sticks.)
- What kind of personality should it have? Formal and professional? Casual and funny? Sarcastic and chaotic? This is where it gets fun.
There are no wrong answers. You can always change these later.
Minute 2: Get your bearings
After the intro conversation, your assistant sets up your Home Base. This is your dashboard, a starting point with suggested actions based on what you talked about.
You'll see things like:
- “Start my day” — get a morning briefing
- “Check my email” — see what's in your inbox
- “Make it yours” — customize your assistant's look
- And a few more tailored to what you mentioned
Click any of them. They're not decorative. They actually do things.
Minute 3: Ask it something
Just type. Like you'd text a friend.
Try any of these:
"What's the weather like today?"
"Tell me something interesting."
"What can you do?"
Your assistant will respond, possibly use some tools (like checking the weather), and show you results. Notice how it doesn't ask you to set up a weather API key first. It just... works. That's the “inviting” principle in action.
Minute 4: Let it do something
This is where it gets real. Ask your assistant to take an action:
"Remind me to stretch in 30 minutes."
"Write me a haiku about Mondays."
"Build me a simple countdown timer."
Watch what happens. It doesn't just describe the thing. It makes the thing. Reminders get set. Documents open in an editor. Apps appear on screen. This is the difference between a chatbot and an assistant.
✋ Permission check: If your assistant needs to access your files or run a command on your machine, it will ask first. You'll see an Allow / Don't Allow prompt. It explains what it needs and why. You're always in control.
Minute 5: Teach it something about you
Your assistant gets better the more it knows about you. You don't have to fill out a profile. Just... talk to it.
"I'm a designer who works mostly in Figma."
"I hate mornings. Don't be chipper before noon."
"I'm working on a project called Moonshot and it's due in March."
It saves these things to your workspace and uses them to personalize future interactions. Tomorrow, when you say “start my day,” it'll know you're a grumpy morning person working on Moonshot. And it'll adjust.
That's it. You're set up.
No 47-step wizard. No “complete your profile” nag screen. Just a conversation.
From here, you can:
- Explore skills — see what your assistant can do out of the box → Your First Skill
- Dig into concepts — understand how it all works → Key Concepts
- Read the guides — learn specific workflows → Guides
- Keep talking — honestly, just keep using it. It gets better the more you do.