Getting started

Getting started — PI, student and researcher first day

The first-time user landing page is now described in the portal source at /getting-started/. The release may not yet be deployed; source/CI and live access are separate.

Before you request a machine

1. Create an account and verify your email.
2. Complete research identity and enable MFA.
3. Register only public SSH and WireGuard keys. Never paste a private key or recovery code into the portal or Guide. Registration is distinct from actual provisioning.
4. A student requests membership in an existing research programme; a PI applies via the PI application page. Approval is not automatic.
5. Check resource entitlements before trying CPU/GPU/QPU workloads.
6. Launch Workbench and run a small approved CPU notebook. Use Runs for scheduler-managed execution; record the Slurm job ID and artifact manifest.

What a student should expect

A verified account plus programme membership request does not imply automatic POSIX/SSH/VPN provisioning or GPU access. Once the PI and operator approve resources, the portal can expose its Workbench and scheduler paths. Only use an approved scheduler allocation; do not share another user's account.

What a PI should expect

A programme application creates a review request, not a live resource pool. Programme owners/members, quotas and research permissions remain separate from account signup. Confirm the membership and capacity allocation before telling students that hardware is available.

Shell, Herdr and Guide

Login nodes preserve their existing login shell. zsh is installed only as an optional interactive shell; run zsh to opt in for that session and exit to return. This never changes a Slurm script's #!/bin/bash shebang or its scheduler authorization.

Herdr reconnects per-user terminal panes; ACP PostgreSQL remains the source for persistent researcher chats, not saved terminal output. The current acp --browser-pair path is an authentication conformance fallback, not the planned repeated daily UX. This feature is tracked in ACP #88.

Quick lessons and videos

The reviewed editorial plan proposes short signup, MFA, SSH/WireGuard, PI, student, Workbench, Slurm and agent status videos. No videos have yet been released. Never record private keys, JWTs, live user names, allocations or private workspaces for a tutorial.

More: Account and access, Researcher guide and Workbench and runs.