# Set up a first agent

> Create a working agent in the Test environment and watch its first run.

Section: Start. Web page: https://docs.katara.com/start/first-agent/

**Get Started** in the portal sets up one agent and starts its first run. Without it, [defining an agent](https://docs.katara.com/products/runs.txt) takes an identity, a content store, a policy, uploaded instructions and schemas, a budget, grants and a published version, each on its own page. [Tutorial: run a managed agent](https://docs.katara.com/products/tutorial-managed-agent.txt) takes that path with the API, as a free simulation.

Setup runs in an organization's **Test** environment, for an owner or admin. The first run is real Test Compute paid from your account's credits, so the account needs one credit available. A new account's signup credit covers it.

## Choose a starter

| Starter | What the agent does | Its first run |
| --- | --- | --- |
| General Assistant | Answers a task in text | Introduces itself and lists what it can help with |
| Summarizer | Returns a short summary and the key points of a text | Summarizes a sample paragraph |
| Blank Agent | Follows instructions you write | Carries out the first task you write |

A blank agent's instructions can be up to 32 KiB and its first task up to 4,000 characters. Every starter answers through [Cortex](https://docs.katara.com/concepts/cortex.txt).

## What setup creates

The page lists nine steps and marks each one as it finishes:

1. An agent identity with a service account of its own.
2. A content store for its files, unless the environment already has one.
3. A starter policy, if the environment has no active policy. It allows model calls and tool actions, and holds any tool action that writes for approval by a new team named Approvers, with you as its first member.
4. The agent's instructions, its input and output schemas, and the first run's input.
5. A budget of one credit. Funding it reserves one credit of your balance for the agent, with consent to spend it on Test Compute.
6. Grants that let the agent's runs start and call Cortex.
7. The agent's first published version.
8. Read access for the agent to that version's instructions and schemas.
9. The first run.

Select **Watch the First Run** to follow it. The agent then appears on the Agents page; publish another version to change what it does. The run form offers to give the agent read access to whatever a new version pins.

The grants and the spending consent last thirty days. After that the agent needs new ones to run, and whatever the budget did not spend goes back to your balance. Closing the budget under **Budgets & Grants** returns it sooner.

On day 24, when 80% of that time has passed, Katara sends you a reminder in the inbox and by email. It links to the agent's **New Run** page, which from then on offers **Renew**: one review sets up another thirty days with a new budget, so the agent keeps running without a gap. The old budget keeps its credit reserved until it ends, unless you close it.

Whoever issued an agent's grants cannot approve its actions, so an approval under the starter policy needs a teammate. Add one to Approvers before giving the agent a tool that writes. Approving is done by a person signed in to the portal; an API key cannot approve.

## When setup stops part way

Each finished step is kept, and you have one setup under way per environment. Get Started shows it wherever you open the page, in another tab or on another device, and **Continue Setup** resumes after the last finished step without creating a second agent. To choose a different starter, select **Start Over**: the setup is discarded and any credit it held goes back to your balance. What it already made, such as the agent, stays.

A new organization's access can take a few seconds to arrive; the page tries again on its own. If less than one credit is available, add credits in **Billing** and continue.

## Use the API

`startSetup` / `start_setup` takes `starter` and, for a blank agent, `instructions` and `first_task`. It needs a person's signed-in session; API keys cannot start a setup. While you have a setup under way in the environment, starting again with the same request continues it whatever the idempotency key, and a different request answers `setup_in_progress`. Once it has finished, a new key starts another.

The response lists each step and whether it is done, with the request the setup was started with. A setup is `done` once its first run is admitted, and then carries `agent_id` and `run_id`; follow the run with [run events](https://docs.katara.com/products/run-events.txt). A step that cannot finish returns its error instead: `reauthentication_required` asks you to sign in again, `product_access_unavailable` means access has not arrived yet, and `budget_unavailable` means the account cannot reserve the credit.

`getCurrentSetup` / `get_current_setup` returns the setup you have under way, so another client can continue it, and `discardSetup` / `discard_setup` gives it up and returns its credit. `getSetup` / `get_setup` reads any setup you started. Only the person who started a setup can read or discard it.