# First steps

> What to do in the first half hour — launch a ready-made skill, give it a real task — and a few habits that make Eggent work better.

Source: https://eggent.ai/docs/first-steps/

After signing in you land on the new-chat screen. On the left is the sidebar with projects and chats, in the middle the message box, and the **Files** button on the right opens the file tree.

## The screen in brief {#screen}

- **New Chat** — start a new conversation.
- **Projects** — the list of projects. The selected project decides which folder and which instructions the agent works with. With no project selected, the **orchestrator** answers.
- **Chats** — the conversations of the current project. A dot next to a chat means the agent is still working on it.
- **Board** — the task board: work handed to the agent as cards.
- **Settings** — models, context, memory, skills, MCP, schedules, messengers and API.
- **Files** (button in the header) — the current project's files: upload, open, download.
- **Message box** — your message, attachments, voice and the model picker. Under it is the chat mode line.

## Step 1. Start with a card {#about-you}

If you chose a first task at signup, the agent is already working on it. Otherwise, the new-chat screen shows quick-start cards, and the first three produce something right away: **Make a document**, **Morning brief in Telegram** and **Build a table from other sites**. All cards are described in the [Skill catalog](https://eggent.ai/docs/skill-catalog.md).

If you run a business, try the **Business AI system** card: the agent sorts everything about your business into files, and every chat after that works with the full picture.

## Step 2. Give it a real task {#first-task}

Write the way you would write to a colleague — plain words, with details:

- "Find five competitors of our coffee shop in Austin, compare their cappuccino prices and make an Excel table with links."
- "Here is the contract (attached). List every deadline and penalty."
- "Write three versions of a post about opening our new branch, short and without exclamation marks."

The agent decides what it needs: search the web, read a file, run code, build a document. Files it produces appear in the **Files** panel, and paths to them in the answer become links.

## Step 3. Make a project for recurring work {#project}

If the work will repeat, give it a project: ask in chat "create a project called Channel content", or use a quick-start card — many cards create a project for themselves. Keep everything about that work there from then on: files, instructions, memory, schedules. See [Projects and the orchestrator](https://eggent.ai/docs/projects.md).

## Step 4. Connect Telegram {#telegram}

If you signed up through [@eggentai_bot](https://t.me/eggentai_bot), Telegram is already connected. If you signed up on the website, ask the agent to connect Telegram: it gives you a link to the shared bot. Or connect your own bot with the **Your own Telegram bot** card or in **Settings → Messengers**. Then you can write to the agent from your phone with text, voice and files, and it can send results there on a schedule. See [Telegram](https://eggent.ai/docs/telegram.md).

## Habits that make it easier {#habits}

- **One topic, one chat.** A long chat about everything is more expensive and more confusing. New task, new chat.
- **Standing things go into context, one-off things into the message.** If you keep repeating yourself, ask the agent to write it into the project's context.
- **Ask it to remember.** "Remember that I expect reports on Mondays" — and the agent saves it to memory.
- **Don't wait at the screen.** You can close the tab or switch chats: the work continues and the result waits in the chat.
- **Stop and steer as it goes.** The stop button interrupts the work, and a message sent while the agent is working is taken into the current task.
- **Use the light mode for simple questions.** If you only need a conversation with no files or tools, pick "plain chat" in a new chat — it costs many times less. See [Chats](https://eggent.ai/docs/chats.md#modes).