Quick Start Guide

Get productive with Agency in 5 minutes.

Step 1: Create Your First Vault

A vault is your encrypted knowledge base. You can create multiple vaults for different purposes.

1. Click "Create New Vault" on the welcome screen
2. Choose a name and location
3. Set a strong passphrase
4. Click "Create"

Create or Join an Organization (Optional)

• Stay offline-only: skip cloud signup; everything stays local.
• Cloud identity only: create an org so you can accept invites later while keeping data local.
• Cloud + storage: create an org and enable App-Managed or BYOS storage to sync and collaborate.
• Org settings control privacy vs compliance modes and billing; you can switch later.

Create a Team

• Teams segment vault data and keys.
• Pick a storage mode per team (local-only, App-Managed cloud, or BYOS).
• Assign roles: Org Admin/Member; within teams, Team Admin/Member with granular permissions (view/upload/share/delete).
• You can create multiple teams inside the same org or stay solo in a personal team.

Step 2: Import Documents

Agency supports 30+ file types:

• PDF: .pdf
• Office/ODF docs: .doc, .docx, .docm, .dotx, .dotm, .docb, .odt, .ott, .sxw, .stw, .rtf, .txt, .md, .markdown, .org, .rst
• Spreadsheets: .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xltx, .xltm, .xlsb, .ods, .ots, .csv, .tsv, plus legacy Lotus/Works formats
• Presentations & diagrams: .ppt, .pptx, .pptm, .odp, .otp, .sxi, .sti, .vsd, .vsdx, .wmf, .emf, .cdr
• Text/markup/code: .json, .yaml, .yml, .html, .xml, .js, .ts, .py, .java, .cpp, .c, .cs, .rb, .swift, .go
• Images (OCR): .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .psd, .pcd, .gem, .img, .pic, .scr, .pnt, .mac, .drw, .dsf, .msp, .pcx, .psp, .tga
• Email: .eml, .msg; Archives: .pst, .mbox (exploded into .eml/.ics/.vcf)
• Calendars: .ics, .ical
• EPUB: .epub
• Archives: .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .gtar.gz, .7z, .csv.gz, .seq.gz

To import:

1. Drag files directly into the Agency window
2. Or use File → Import Documents
3. Agency will process and index your files automatically
4. Processing status shows per file; errors are logged with reasons

Step 3: Search Your Knowledge

Use the search bar with semantic + keyword filters:

• Semantic search: "contracts about liability"
• Exact phrases: "signed agreement"
• Operators: type:pdf, before:2024-01-01, author:alice, tag:finance, filename:"q4 plan"

Step 4: Chat with Your Documents

Click the Chat tab to have a conversation with your knowledge base:

• Ask questions about your documents
• Get summaries and insights
• Find connections between topics
• All powered by local AI models