# Quickstart

Add a brand, add the questions your buyers ask, and get your first measurement. Setup
takes about five minutes; results arrive over the following hours.

Working from code or with an AI agent? The same steps run over the API. Install the
TypeScript SDK:

```bash
npm install @shruwd/sdk
```

For Claude, Cursor or another MCP client, the server is `npx -y shruwd-mcp` — see
[MCP server](https://shruwd.io/docs/api/mcp-server.md). Both take an API key from **Account → API keys**. The
API is described at [`/openapi.json`](https://shruwd.io/openapi.json), and the
[API overview](https://shruwd.io/docs/api/api-overview.md) covers authentication and errors.

## Prerequisites

- A Shruwd account. If you do not have one, [create one](https://shruwd.io/sign-up) — the free plan needs no card.
- Your brand's domain.
- A rough idea of the questions a buyer asks before choosing a product like yours.

## 1. Add your brand

Go to **Brands → Add a brand** and fill in three fields.

| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| **Brand name** | Your name as it is written in answers. It becomes the first thing Shruwd matches on, so spell it the way the world does. |
| **Domain** | A URL or a host. It is reduced to the registrable domain, and citations of any page on it count as yours. |
| **Timezone** | Sets the day boundary for measurements. |

Leave **Suggestions** on. Shruwd reads your homepage and drafts prompts and competitors
for you to edit, which is faster than starting from a blank page. Nothing is saved until
you add it.

> **Note**
>
> The domain cannot be changed later — it defines what Shruwd treats as you. To track a
> different domain, add another brand.

## 2. Add competitors

Go to **Competitors** and add the brands you expect to be compared against. Shruwd
counts a mention only when it matches exactly, so add the spellings answers actually use.

Short or common-word names need **context terms** — words that make "Arc" mean the
company rather than the word. Shruwd asks for them rather than guessing.

Add them before your prompts. Your first measurement starts with your first prompt and
counts only the competitors that exist by then, and on the free plan it is the only one.

You can skip this and come back. Once answers start arriving, Shruwd lists the names
that came up but are not tracked, and you can accept them in one click.

## 3. Add prompts

Prompts are the questions asked on each engine, every cycle. Go to the brand's
**Prompts** page and add them one per line.

Write them the way a buyer would type them, not as keywords:

```
best waitlist software for a product launch
launchlist alternatives
how do I collect sign-ups before launch
```

Pick an **intent** for each batch. Intent decides which diagnostics apply, and
`commercial` and `comparison` prompts are where competitors get named — start there.

Your first measurement begins within minutes of your first prompt, so add the whole set
together.

## 4. Read the first results

Results appear on the brand's **Overview** as each cycle completes. Expect the first
numbers within a few hours, not immediately.

Until a metric has at least ten responses behind it, Shruwd shows **insufficient data**
rather than a number. That is not zero and not an error — it means the sample is too
small to mean anything yet.

## Next steps

- [Reading your results](https://shruwd.io/docs/getting-started/reading-your-results.md) — what each number means
- [Prompts](https://shruwd.io/docs/tracking/prompts.md) — choosing questions worth measuring
- [How findings work](https://shruwd.io/docs/findings/how-findings-work.md) — turning a result into a fix