Your first workspace

After completing the installation guide, open the local dtxWiki address or the team server prepared by your administrator and sign in. Follow this walkthrough to create your first workspace; no coding knowledge is needed.

What you will make

Create a small Product Launch workspace with one reference file and a Launch plan page. At the end, another workspace reader can find the plan. If you turn on the experimental Ask menu, you can also ask a question about it.

Before the walkthrough

• New local installation: follow installation to start the app, choose Sign up, and enter your email, a password of 8–128 characters and, optionally, a display name of up to 32 characters. No default account exists. Successful signup opens the Dashboard and creates your private Personal Workspace.
• Shared server: sign in with your existing email/password at the address supplied by the administrator. If signup is unavailable, ask for an account; creating an account does not join the team workspace automatically.
• Local file processing: keep the dtxwiki terminal running. It also processes queued imports, so no separate worker is needed; see Access and background operation. AI and SMTP are optional for this exercise.

If you also operate the installation, the server-admin grant is a separate step after creating your account. Ordinary reading and editing do not require it. You can do this exercise in your Personal Workspace, or create the dedicated practice workspace below to keep its example materials together.

1. Select or create a workspace

1. Sign in at your local address (http://127.0.0.1:21080/) or the team server address your administrator provided.
2. Open the workspace name in the top bar. Select a workspace you already belong to, or choose Create workspace.
3. For a new workspace, enter Product Launch, select Project Documentation as its purpose, and choose Create.
4. Confirm that the top bar shows Product Launch before adding content.

A workspace is a shared boundary for content and permissions. If you cannot create or join one, use Find workspaces or ask an owner for access. Joining a team workspace may require approval; it does not happen just because you opened its link.

2. Add a simple reference

For this exercise, create a plain text file named launch-brief.txt using a text editor. Copy the following fictional material into it and save it as UTF-8:

Product Launch — exercise material
Goal: make a small team's approved knowledge easy to find.
Audience: new team members and project coordinators.
Launch owner: Mina.
Open question: who will review the installation checklist?

1. Open Library and choose Upload.
2. Select launch-brief.txt.
3. Wait for the upload to finish, select the item, and check its processing status and extracted view.

Expected result: the reference is stored in Library. When processing succeeds, usable text is available for search and questions. Upload availability depends on the server and workspace policy. If it remains Pending on a local installation, check that the dtxwiki terminal is still running without errors; on a shared server, ask the administrator to check background processing. Original stored can also mean extraction is unavailable for that item. See Library for its processing states.

3. Write and publish a page

1. Open Context, then New Context page. The top-bar Create → New Context page is another entry point.
2. Enter Launch plan as the title.
3. Write a short paragraph: “Mina owns the Product Launch. The installation checklist still needs a reviewer.”
4. Choose Save draft. Wait for the saved status before leaving the editor.
5. Read your text again, then choose Publish.

Expected result: the Context reader identifies a published page version. Workspace Viewers can read that published version. Publishing a version does not automatically publish it to the public web. In the Context explorer, the page's row shows a filled dot (Recent change) for 72 hours after publication.

The editor's Save draft and autosave create an unpublished draft visible to authorized workspace Editors and Owners. They do not by themselves create a Review item. An author-private MCP edit is a separate state; see Context pages. In this walkthrough, an Editor or Owner publishes the page directly.

Check your setup progress

Open Dashboard. Its Setup card follows three steps: Add source material, Write Context page, and Save or review. Once any step is complete, the card shows only the next step and a progress bar: after steps 2 and 3 of this walkthrough, it reads Next: Save or review and 2 of 3 setup steps complete.

Publishing directly does not complete Save or review. That step is marked complete after a change has been decided in the Review queue, so the card and its Open Review queue button can remain after this walkthrough. This is expected.

Find the plan with Search

Open Search under Workflow in the left navigation, enter Product Launch, and open Launch plan from the results.

Expected result: the published page appears in the results. The Library file you added can appear as well.

4. Optional: ask a focused question

Ask is an experimental menu and stays hidden until you turn it on. You do not need it to find the plan.

1. Open Settings, select Labs under Your account, and select Show Ask menu. The change applies immediately, changes no permissions, and is saved for your account in this browser only. Ask appears under Knowledge with a Preview badge.
2. Open Ask and choose New or Start first Ask session.
3. Ask “Who owns the Product Launch?” and choose Send.
4. Inspect Cited evidence, then open the linked page to confirm the answer.

With no answer model configured, Ask can show a retrieval summary from your evidence. A configured model may compose a fuller answer. The essential check is the evidence, not the length of the response. See Search and Ask.

5. Invite a reader when you are ready

An Owner can add members and choose their roles. Adding a member shares the workspace within that role's permissions; it is broader than sharing one page. Follow Members and access.

If something differs

What you see	What to do
No edit or upload action	Ask the Owner whether you have Editor access.
Your colleague cannot see the new page	Check that it has a published version and that both accounts selected the same workspace.
Ask is missing, or an Ask link shows We couldn't find that page	Ask is hidden by default. Turn on Settings → Labs → Show Ask menu; the choice is saved for your account in this browser.
Ask finds no evidence	Publish a clear page, check Library processing, and search for Product Launch first.
An unfamiliar server error	Keep the visible error message and contact the administrator; do not reinstall or delete data to fix it.

Continue with Find your way around or Create and edit Context pages.

Understand your starter workspace

The private space created at signup is an ordinary workspace. Ownership can be handed over; deleting it does not recreate it automatically. The personal- slug prefix is reserved for generated starter workspaces. External sign-in can create an account without email or password. Add launch-brief.txt with References → Add reference, choose Cite in text, then publish Launch plan. Open its Graph to inspect the published source connection. In your workspace Inbox, open an eligible review request when one exists; reading its notice does not approve it.

Implementation reference: workspace controls, editor, explorer markers, setup steps, Labs menus, Ask.