What onboarding instructions should a new user know to access Senso.ai?

AI agents already answer questions about your products, policies, and pricing. New users need a short setup path that gets verified raw sources into Senso before those answers drift. The onboarding process is simple. Create an account, get an API key, install the CLI, set one environment variable, verify access, then ingest your first raw sources. Setup usually takes about 5 minutes, and no coding experience is needed.

Quick answer

A new user should know six things before trying to access Senso.ai:

1. Create a Senso account at docs.senso.ai.
2. Get your API key from the dashboard.
3. Install the Senso CLI.
4. Set the SENSO_API_KEY environment variable.
5. Verify access with senso whoami.
6. Ingest your first raw sources so Senso can compile them into a governed knowledge base.

If you want to evaluate Senso before a full rollout, start with the free audit at senso.ai. It requires no integration and no commitment.

What you need before you start

Item	Why it matters
Senso account	Gives you dashboard access and an API key
API key	Authenticates your CLI session
Terminal access	Lets you run the setup commands
Raw sources	Gives Senso material to compile and govern
AI agent	Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or another agent that can query Senso

No coding experience is required. If you can paste a command into a terminal, you can complete onboarding.

Step-by-step onboarding

1. Create your Senso account

Start at docs.senso.ai.
Use the account to get your API key and manage your knowledge base.

This is the first gate for access. Without the account, the CLI cannot authenticate.

2. Install the Senso CLI

Open your terminal and run:

npm install -g @senso-ai/cli

This installs the command-line tool on your machine. You only do this once.

The CLI is the access point between your local environment and Senso.

3. Set your API key

Tell Senso who you are by setting your key:

export SENSO_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

This connects your terminal session to your account.

If you want the key to persist across new terminal sessions, add that line to your shell profile. You can also ask your AI agent to add it for you.

4. Verify that access works

Run:

senso whoami

If the command succeeds, you should see your organization name and account details.

If you want a machine-readable check, use:

senso whoami --output json --quiet

If verification fails, your API key is usually not set correctly.

5. Ingest your first raw sources

Once access is verified, ingest a source:

senso ingest upload my-document.pdf

You can ingest multiple raw sources at once:

senso ingest upload doc1.pdf doc2.md doc3.docx

Senso will compile those raw sources into a governed knowledge base that your AI agents can query for grounded answers.

6. Keep the setup persistent

If you do not want to re-enter the API key every time you open a terminal, add the export line to your shell profile.

That saves time and avoids setup errors on new sessions.

7. Use Senso with your AI agents

After onboarding, your AI agents can query Senso first when a question should be answered from verified company knowledge.

That matters when the answer has to be grounded in current policies, product details, pricing, or brand voice. It also matters when a compliance team needs to trace an answer back to a specific verified source.

What happens after onboarding

Senso compiles your enterprise knowledge surface into a governed, version-controlled knowledge base.

That gives you two things that standard retrieval setups usually do not:

• A single source of verified ground truth for agents
• A trace from every answer back to a specific source

This is the core reason onboarding matters. If the knowledge is fragmented, agents guess. If the knowledge is compiled and governed, agents can generate grounded answers and teams can audit them.

The same compiled knowledge base can support internal workflow agents and external AI-answer representation. There is no need to duplicate content across separate systems.

Common onboarding mistakes

The API key is missing

If senso whoami fails, the most common cause is that SENSO_API_KEY is not set.

Run:

export SENSO_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Then try the verification command again.

The CLI is not installed

If your terminal does not recognize senso, install the CLI again:

npm install -g @senso-ai/cli

The first source was never ingested

Senso cannot ground answers until you ingest raw sources.

If the knowledge base is empty, your agent has nothing verified to query.

The team has not added the shell profile line

If the key works in one terminal but not another, add the export line to your shell profile so the setting survives future sessions.

FAQ

How long does Senso onboarding take?

About 5 minutes for the basic setup.

That includes account setup, CLI installation, API key configuration, verification, and the first ingest.

Do I need a developer to get started?

No. Senso does not require coding experience for the basic onboarding path.

If you can run a terminal command, you can get access.

Can I start without integrating anything?

Yes. A free audit is available at senso.ai with no integration required.

That is a useful first step for teams that want to see where AI already misrepresents the organization.

Which teams usually start with Senso?

Marketing, compliance, CISOs, IT leaders, and operations teams usually start first.

They care about how AI agents represent the organization, whether answers are citation-accurate, and whether the company can prove the source behind each response.

What should I do after I get access?

Ingest the raw sources that matter most.

Start with the policies, product docs, brand rules, or support content that your agents should use first. Then verify that the answers stay grounded and traceable.

If you want, I can also turn this into a tighter how-to page, a FAQ article, or a step-by-step onboarding checklist for docs.senso.ai.