Guides / Start here

Your first company and ticket

This guide uses the setup wizard to create a company, connect your accounts and start a first ticket. The wizard has eight steps, and you can skip any of them.

1. Your company

Type a Company name and a sentence or two under What it's for. The CEO plans the work from this. Choose Create the company, then Next.

Boss Man creates the company's CEO agent and a paused Wiki Maintainer. If the launcher is on (BOSSMAN_LAUNCHER=1 in .env, as Install Boss Man sets), Boss Man also starts the company's runner. If it is off, you start the runner yourself in step 3.

2. A project

A project is a git repository your agents work in. Type a Project name and choose Add the project. Paste the repository address into Git repo, for example https://github.com/you/repo.git.

Under When work is approved, choose Merge into the default branch or Open a pull request. Choose the pull request option if your default branch only accepts pull requests.

3. The runner

Wait for the runner to say Connected. It shows Starting… first, and can take up to a minute. If it says Not started, choose Start runner.

4. Claude

On your own computer, run claude setup-token. It prints a long-lived token for your Claude plan. In the wizard, choose Claude setup-token under Add, paste the token into Value, and save. Then choose Check with Claude, which runs one tiny prompt on the runner.

Using another account? Under Add, choose its kind instead, such as OpenRouter API key, Ollama Cloud API key or Synthetic API key, paste the key and save. In step 7, pick the matching provider.

Paste tokens only into these forms. Never paste one into a chat, a ticket or the wiki, because agents can read those.

5. A git token

Choose Git token (GitHub or Gitea) under Add.

• On GitHub, make a fine-grained personal access token for only the repositories this company works on, with Contents, Pull requests and Workflows set to read and write, and Checks set to read.
• On Gitea, open Settings > Applications > Generate New Token and give it repository Read and Write.

Paste it, save, and choose Check the token against your project. You should see "The token can read and push to the repo."

6. Checks before merging

Under Before merging, Boss Man will, choose the command Boss Man runs before it merges approved work. Boss Man suggests one from your repository. Choose Re-detect if the list looks generic.

7. What pays for the CEO

Under Funding sources, name your plan, for example "Claude Max", and choose the kind Subscription (setup-token). Choose Add, then pick it under "The CEO runs on". Boss Man uses this to track cost and quota.

8. A first task

Type a Title, for example "Read the repo and propose a roadmap". Tick Give it to your CEO now (it starts straight away). The box shows your CEO's name, which is "CEO" unless you changed it. Choose Add the task to your project. Then choose Finish.

Hire your first agent

The CEO needs someone to hand work to.

1. Open Agents in the sidebar and choose Hire.
2. Under Start from, pick a role, such as Engineer.
3. Give it a Name. Under Agent, choose Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode.
4. Leave Model on Default, or pick one. Under Paid from, pick your funding source.
5. Read the Instructions and change them to fit your company.
6. Choose Hire. The button shows the name you typed, for example Hire Sam.

Add more tickets

Open Projects, open your project, and choose Add task. Fill in:

• Title and Description
• Done when, one line per check, up to 10
• Risk, or leave it on "Let the CEO rate it"
• Assign to, or leave it on "Nobody yet" for the CEO to assign

If you picked an agent under Assign to, choose Add and start to start it now. If you left it on "Nobody yet", the button says Add to backlog, and the ticket waits in Backlog.

To follow the ticket and answer the cards it raises, see The board and Decisions.

If nothing starts

Check that the agent is not paused, and that Settings > Server and runner says the runner is Connected.

Something wrong or missing? Tell us on GitHub.