# Welcome. Make yourself at home.

**Start with one note. You do not need an account, a technical background, or a tour of the engine room.**

Cursors is a place to keep things you want to pick back up. The small apps at the front are the easy entrance. The cockpit lets you look inside the larger experimental system — without having to understand it first.

## 1. Try something that works right here

Open **START**. Under **#this-browser**, write a sentence and press **SAVE LOCAL NOTE**. Refresh the page. Your note should still be there.

![The current Start page has an actual local notebook and address book beneath the welcome.](images/ui/first-flight-for-everyone.jpg)

The message **Saved in this browser** means just that. It has not been sent to a friend or uploaded to a cloud account. These notes are not encrypted. Clearing this site's data removes them, and private-browsing sessions may discard them when you close the window.

The **Your people** card lets you save a name and a public mailbox address. It does not send an invitation or grant anyone control over your work. A guest's contacts stay in that guest address book; creating a Self does not secretly move them into a different identity.

## 2. Make a Self when you are ready

Choose **SIGN IN + RESUME** in the top row, or the big **SIGN IN / MAKE MY SELF** button. A *Self* is simply your Cursors sign-in identity.

![The sign-in page separates the local Self, optional public mailbox, and encrypted recovery.](images/ui/resume-your-cursors.jpg)

Choose **CREATE WITH PASSKEY**, follow your browser's fingerprint, face, or device-unlock prompt, then choose **UNLOCK WITH PASSKEY**. Creation deliberately leaves the new identity locked.

Not every passkey supports the encryption feature this prototype needs. A normal passkey sign-in working elsewhere does not guarantee this one will. When your browser cannot do it, stay with the local tools. Do not paste a password, secret key, or API token into anything as a workaround.

Already made a Self here? Use **UNLOCK WITH PASSKEY** rather than creating another one.

## 3. Look at the small service strip

Just under the navigation, Cursors tells you what it actually knows about the cloud.

**Cloud features paused** means this deployment intentionally is not accepting those operations. **Unavailable**, **offline**, or **unknown** means the app cannot establish current availability. None of those means your local notes were uploaded or your Self was lost.

**Configuration observed** is only a first check. It is not confirmation that you are signed in, that your mailbox was published, or that a message was delivered. The relevant button must return its own success result.

## 4. Chat with a person — only when the cloud path is available

Open **CHAT** for your notebook, address book, and the separate experimental cloud panel. Both people need compatible local identities and a working deployment to use that cloud panel.

![The Chat view separates local notes from experimental remote conversations.](images/ui/chat-with-a-friend.jpg)

The cloud panel says **NOT E2E YET**: its note text is visible to the service. Keep secrets out. [Chat with a Friend](chat-with-a-friend.md) explains the exact steps and the difference between saving a contact and sending a message.

## 5. Curiosity gets its own button

Choose **COCKPIT**. Click a component to select it. Double-click to focus it. **Return to Self** takes you back to your local observer. The organized board, routed traces, and inspection panels are the real cockpit, not a replacement landing-page illustration.

![The cockpit keeps its segmented machine and inspectable components.](images/ui/information-superhighway.jpg)

A label such as **unobserved**, **configured**, **planned**, or **research** is important. A component on the board is not a promise that its network connection or future feature is working.

## Before you leave

A note in the same browser is the easy kind of resuming. Recovering an identity on a different device needs an encrypted backup **and its original compatible passkey**. Publishing a public address alone cannot restore it. Recovering cursor work also needs that work's checkpoints and evidence; signing in is not a magic restore-everything button.

Read [Resume Your Cursors](resume-your-cursors.md) before clearing browser data or relying on another device. The [GitHub guide](github-gist-hydration.md) describes an optional backup carrier, not a replacement identity.

## On iPhone or without WebRTC

Use [Cursors on iPhone and iPad](ios-safari.md) for local notes, verified published HTTPS parts, HTTPS-only mode, and returning after the phone sleeps. This does not enable a paused cloud service, guarantee cold offline boot, or make cloud notes end-to-end encrypted.