Quickstart

This walkthrough takes you from no account to an agent that builds with your brand and checks its own work. Setup is two steps, your brand and your agent, and both write as they go, so leaving midway loses nothing.

1. 1

   Get access

   Archetype is in early access. Go to /waitlist, enter your email and click Join the waitlist. When a spot opens, you get an email invite; open the link in it to reach Create your account.

   If your team already uses Archetype, you don't need the waitlist. Ask whoever manages your team to invite you from Settings → Team, or, if your team lets anyone at your email domain join, sign in with that address. Either way you join their brand and skip the setup below.

   Your first brand starts with a 14-day trial of Pro, with no card needed. See Plans and trial.

2. 2

   Name yourself and your brand

   After you sign up, setup opens on Welcome to Archetype. Under You, enter Your name and add a photo if you like. Under Your brand, enter the Brand name and, optionally, its Website. Click Continue.

3. 3

   Let Archetype read your website

   If you entered a website, Archetype reads it while you watch Extracting your brand: Understanding the brand, Mapping visual patterns, Capturing color palette and Learning the aesthetics. It brings in your colors, type, logo and the images the site shows. This is a one-time read; a countdown shows roughly how long is left.

   The images keep being described by Claude in the background after you move on, so agents can find them by what they show. That work spends AI credits (see AI credits).

   No website, or a site that doesn't represent the brand? Leave the field empty and your agent brings the brand in instead. See From a website for what the read does and doesn't pick up.

4. 4

   Connect your agent

   Next, setup tells you your brand is all set and asks you to connect your agent. Pick the one you build with: Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT, v0, Lovable or Other.

   • Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Other: copy the one prompt shown and paste it into the agent. It adds Archetype as an MCP server and then imports your brand.
   • Claude, ChatGPT, v0 and Lovable: follow the clicks shown to add a custom connector, named after your brand, with the URL to copy.

   Then approve in the browser. Pick your brand, tick Change the brand when you ask it to so the agent can import, and click Connect. Only Editors and up can allow changes. Leave the setup tab open: it notices the connection on its own.

   Per-agent details are in Connect an agent and on the guides at /mcp, such as /mcp/claude.

5. 5

   Bring in the rest of the brand

   Once you see Connected to your agent, give it the prompt shown, with Copy prompt. For Claude, ChatGPT, v0 and Lovable, paste it into a new chat and point the agent at your code, files or website. An agent that already ran the first prompt carries on; if it asks you to restart, do that and paste the prompt again.

   The agent imports your tokens and components, and does a dry run first so you can decide what to do with anything the brand already has. Its writes during setup land straight away, and the setup tab shows them arriving. Click Continue while it imports whenever you like, or Skip for now to finish without the agent.

6. 6

   Review what came in

   Setup ends on Your brand is in: your Logo, Fonts, Images and Colors, plus Gradients and an Also imported row when there are any. Hover any tile to replace, remove or change it. Click Open Archetype.

   After a short welcome, Home opens with the Get started checklist at the foot of the sidebar, with steps such as Check logo & colors, Import components, Choose an icon set, Invite a teammate and Connect your AI tool. Each row links to the page where you do it, and ticks itself once the brand holds the thing, whoever added it.

   Anything not ready for agents yet can be marked Draft or In review so it stays in the app. See Item states.

7. 7

   Ask your agent for something on brand

   Open a new chat in your agent, with the Archetype connector turned on, and ask for real work. For example:

   Using our Archetype brand, build a pricing page with three plans.

   The agent starts from the brand's brief, which opens with BRAND.md and says what each kind of work needs, then fetches the exact components, tokens, templates and assets it uses. Where the brand has no value for something, it uses the nearest one and tells you what was missing. See MCP tools.

   If you skipped the agent during setup, connect it any time from Settings → Agents.

8. 8

   Check the result

   Agents grade their own work with check_against_brand before they call it done. You can check anything yourself too: open Check in the sidebar, then paste a link or code, or attach a file or screenshot. You get a score and each finding with the value to use instead. See Check.

Next steps#