Getting Started — Plugin or Chat

Set up your workspace

The interview asks what your systems are, what each does, and what talks to what. Answer at the level you know; unclear areas do not block the rest. Choose where to run it.

After approval, your root board holds the system landscape, and every repo-backed system has an app board of its own.

Expand

1. 1

   Drill-down indicator

   Opens the system into its own board layer — right-click any node and choose Create Subsystem Layer to add one.

2. 2

   Typed connections

   Edges carry a description of the relationship, rather than an unlabeled line between systems.

Create your first app

Usually this step is already done: the interview created an app board for every repo-backed system, and the guide ticks it off. Check the root hub — every app board is listed there.

If a system you own has a layer but is not an app yet, open its board and choose Make this an app from the board menu. Pick the app type and sync branch. If it has no layer, right-click its node and choose Create Subsystem Layer first. You can also drag an app from the canvas Apps palette to create the child app board, source, and binding together. One rule applies either way: one app, one repo. The details are in Getting Started — Hands-On.

Connect the repo and sync it

The app boards are empty on purpose: content comes from code, not the interview. In each repo, install the code plugin from the same marketplace (pmap-code@provenmap; Cursor works too) and run:

cd <the-repo>
/login       # browser: pick the app board created for this repo
/analyze     # map the repo into a structured graph, locally
/sync        # push it onto the board

/analyze runs inside your own coding session and maps services, APIs, databases, and queues. It needs no model provider. It writes to .provenmap/ and never edits your source. /sync pushes the result, and the landscape node for that system now opens into its real internals.

The guide watches two things here: that the app board is bound to a code source, and that its first push has arrived. No browser sign-in? Agent access on the app board's hub shows the binding token and snippets, and /configure sets up credentials by hand. Credentials are shown once when issued; Generate new secret in the binding's credentials dialog issues a fresh one without disturbing any machine already connected. Connecting Sources has the full setup sequence.

Expand

1. 1

   Breadcrumb

   The app and the layer you are in — jump back up to the landscape from here.

2. 2

   Components as nodes

   Each part of the stack becomes a node, connected by dependency edges — this is what a first /sync produces.

Repeat per repo. One binding maps one repo, so one repo change updates one board. On the plugin path, the architect plugin's closing Outcome carries this step as a Hand off line for each repo's developer.

Ask the board a question

Open Chat on the synced app board and ask about what arrived. Two questions worth trying:

• What depends on the database?
• Which services call the auth API?

Chat answers from the board and its sources, and can answer with a drawn board instead of text. If this is your first message, chat offers to turn on the organization's trial credits. Connect a model provider (e.g. OpenRouter) under Settings → Connectors when they run out.

That completes the setup guide. Chat covers what else it can do, and Org-Level Intelligence what opens up once several systems are mapped.