Quickstart

Five minutes from signup to a live preview URL. By the end of this guide you'll have an OctopusLab project deployed to a *.octopus-lab.app subdomain and a starting SEO/AEO audit score.

1. Create an account

Open /signup and continue with Google or magic-link email. The first sign-in creates a personal organization on the Free plan — 200 AI credits, no card required.

2. Describe what you want

On the dashboard /app the home composer asks "what are we building?". Type a single sentence — concrete is better than abstract. Examples:

  • "A landing page for a productivity startup with pricing and FAQ, indigo theme, and a waitlist signup form."
  • "A web app for tracking my reading habits — login, book search, monthly stats."
  • "An online store for vintage cameras with stripe checkout and email confirmation."

Optionally pick a category chip (Website / Web app / Mobile app / Store / Dashboard / CRM / Design / Blog / Landing page) — it prepends the right framing to your prompt.

3. Watch the AI build

Press ↑ (or click the coral arrow). OctopusLab:

  1. Creates a new project + unique <slug>.octopus-lab.app subdomain.
  2. Spins up an isolated sandbox (Vercel Sandbox microVM).
  3. Streams the AI's reasoning + file changes into the builder workspace — you see code appearing live in the file tree.
  4. Runs the first deploy as a Preview environment.

First deploy is usually ready in 30–90 seconds depending on the prompt. The status pill on the project overview flips from building to live when it's reachable.

4. Iterate in the builder

Click the project to open the workspace. The split-view shows the chat panel on the left and a live preview on the right. Keep talking to the AI: "make the hero copy punchier", "add a dark mode toggle", "swap the placeholder photos for ones from Unsplash". Every change re-runs the build automatically.

5. Run your first audit

Open the project's SEO / AEO tab and press Run audit. OctopusLab calls Google PageSpeed Insights and stores the four Lighthouse scores + every failing audit as a finding. Each finding has a Fix with AI button — clicking it seeds the chat with a focused prompt that turns the finding into a code change.

6. Go to production

When the preview looks right, hit Promote to production in the Deployments tab. The same artefact is promoted — no rebuild. Your subdomain immediately points at the new active production deployment.

What's next

  • Add a custom domain in project → Domains. We verify the CNAME via Google DoH so the green dot is real, not optimistic.
  • Set a daily token cap on a Pro plan if you want hard cost control — Billing & plans.
  • Invite teammates in Settings → Team (paid plans).
  • Automate from your own scripts via the Public API.