# Quickstart

Deploy your first Hangar agent in 60 seconds. This walks through the
hosted path. Self-host instructions live at
[github.com/ravidsrk/hangar/docs/BACKEND.md](https://github.com/ravidsrk/hangar/blob/main/docs/BACKEND.md).

## 1. Sign up

Visit [hangar.so/login?intent=signup](https://hangar.so/login?intent=signup).
New accounts get a wallet credit on signup, enough for a few hundred LLM
calls before you decide to subscribe. Sign-in is email-link or
Google/GitHub OAuth — pick what's least friction.

## 2. Pick an agent

Browse [hangar.so/agents](https://hangar.so/agents). Each entry
explains:

- **What it does** — the canonical job (SEO content, outbound SDR,
  support resolver, etc.).
- **Channels** — Telegram / Discord / Slack / MCP / web / REST.
- **Pricing hint** — base monthly subscription. LLM tokens are billed
  separately from your wallet at provider cost.

If none of the ten launch agents fits, click **OpenClaw** (Node 20) or
**Hermes** (Python 3.11) to deploy a blank runtime and bring your own
code.

## 3. Configure

Wire up the channels you want:

- Telegram — paste the bot token from [BotFather](https://t.me/botfather).
- Discord — paste the public key + bot token from your application.
- Slack — install the app to a workspace; we manage the OAuth handshake.
- MCP — pre-wired. The agent's MCP endpoint appears in the dashboard.

Set per-agent secrets (API keys, knowledge-base URLs) in the
**Vault** tab. Secrets are AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest with a key
derived from the platform's `ENCRYPTION_KEY`.

## 4. Deploy

Click **Deploy**. The dashboard streams Fly Machine boot logs over SSE.
Boot time is roughly 60 seconds for the first machine in a region; ~20
seconds thereafter. Once the machine reports healthy, the agent is live
and answering on every channel you wired.

## 5. Drive it from your assistant

Mint a Personal Access Token at
[hangar.so/dashboard/settings/tokens](https://hangar.so/dashboard/settings/tokens)
and add Hangar's MCP server to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any
MCP-compatible client.

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hangar": {
      "url": "https://hangar.so/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer oss_<your-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Restart your client and ask: "What's my Hangar wallet balance?" The
`wallet.balance` tool runs and returns the answer.

## What's next

- [Authentication walkthrough](/docs/auth) — sessions, PATs, scopes.
- [MCP guide](/docs/mcp) — the 13 platform-level tools.
- [Runtimes](/docs/runtimes) — adapter pattern, custom code in OpenClaw
  or Hermes.
- [Errors](/docs/errors) — error codes and recovery hints.
- [Rate limits](/docs/rate-limits) — header semantics and backoff.