Getting Started with Clawback

How to understand the current product, choose the right entry path, and get a first impression quickly.

Audience: First-time evaluators, operators, and contributors.

If you want the shortest decision page before diving deeper, start with Start Here.

Start Here

Most people want one of three things:

1. Try the hosted demo
   • go straight to Demo Walkthrough
2. Run Clawback locally
   • use Quickstart
3. Deploy it for real
   • use Deployment

If you are not sure which to choose, start with the demo walkthrough first. If you are running a local or self-hosted admin workspace, start with Quickstart instead so you land on the worker-first setup path.

What Clawback Does

Clawback is a self-hosted platform for AI workers with human review.

• Workers can use your internal docs and context
• Workers can draft or propose actions
• Reviews gate the actions that matter
• Work and activity stay visible after the run

It's strongest when you want:

• answers grounded in internal docs
• draft generation with human review
• controlled automation instead of hidden automation
• visible history after the assistant finishes

If You Want To Automate XYZ For Your Business

A good Clawback workflow usually has five parts:

1. Trigger
   • what starts the work?
   • chat, forwarded email, watched inbox, or another connection
2. Context
   • what docs, notes, or records should the worker see?
3. Behavior
   • what worker or assistant should interpret that input?
4. Boundary
   • what is allowed automatically, and what needs human review?
5. Outcome
   • what should show up afterward in Inbox, Work, and Activity?

Map your use case like this:

If you cannot answer those five questions yet, the right next step is not more configuration. It is clarifying the workflow.

The Fastest Way To Understand The Product

There are two good first paths:

1. Hosted/public evaluator path
   • open Demo Walkthrough
   • use the retrieval-first Incident Copilot path
2. Local or self-hosted admin path
   • use Quickstart
   • sign in as the demo admin
   • open /workspace/setup
   • use Run sample activity to reach the worker proof rail

Together, these give you the fastest answer to:

• what the product is about
• what it feels like in use
• what is already real

Local Start

If you want a local stack quickly:

git clone https://github.com/clwbk/clawback.git clawback
cd clawback
pnpm install
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
./scripts/start-local.sh

Then bootstrap the first admin at:

• http://localhost:3000/setup

Suggested local values:

• Workspace name: Local Dev
• Workspace slug: local
• Email: admin@example.com
• Display name: Admin
• Password: password1

If you want seeded demo data immediately:

pnpm db:seed

Demo login:

• dave@hartwell.com
• demo1234

For the shortest local setup path, use Quickstart.

What To Open First After Login

These are the most useful pages for first understanding:

• Setup for the worker-first activation path
• Today for the current workspace state
• Inbox for reviews and items needing attention
• Work for durable outputs
• Chat for the guided assistant path
• Knowledge for grounded retrieval sources
• Activity for audit truth

These pages show two sides of the product: the worker-first setup path and the retrieval-first guided assistant path.

Current First-Value Paths

1. Worker-first setup path

This is the clearest admin/local first impression:

• open Setup
• use Run sample activity
• follow the worker proof rail into Inbox, Work, or Activity

2. Guided assistant demo

This is the strongest public evaluator impression:

• open Chat
• use Incident Copilot
• ask the guided prompts from Demo Walkthrough

3. Reviewed email path

This is the main governed-action lane:

• forwarded email creates work
• a review gates the send
• outcome remains visible after approval or failure

Useful scripts:

./scripts/test-forward-email.sh
./scripts/test-approve-review.sh
./scripts/test-smtp-send.sh

4. Retrieval path without Gmail

This gives you a low-trust first pass without requiring Google setup:

1. open Knowledge
2. inspect the seeded Incident Copilot Demo connector
3. confirm the sync completed
4. run the retrieval smokes if you are local

pnpm smoke:connector-sync
pnpm smoke:incident-copilot
pnpm smoke:incident-copilot-action

What You Should Know After A First Evaluation

By the end of a good first run, you should be able to say:

• the product can use known internal context
• it can draft a useful next step
• it does not skip the human checkpoint
• work and activity stay visible after the run
• the demo story maps to a real business workflow shape

If you cannot say those yet, the next task is usually better guidance or clearer workflow mapping, not another integration.

See Also

• Start Here
• Demo Walkthrough
• Quickstart
• First-Run Guide
• Deployment
• Verification and Testing
• Known Limitations