Getting Started

Welcome to Ratel — the Human Essence Platform. This chapter walks you through your first day: signing in, setting up your profile, connecting external accounts, and finding your way around.

You can browse most of Ratel without an account, but you'll need one to post, vote, join spaces, build your Essence, or earn rewards.

Sign up & sign in

Find the Sign In button in the left-side menu (or in the bottom bar on mobile) — it's a small door-with-arrow icon. Clicking it opens the Join the Movement popup, which is where both new and returning users start.

In the popup you have three ways to continue:

• Email & password — Enter your email, click Send, and paste the 6-digit code we mail you. Click Verify, then Create an account at the top of the popup to set a password and finish signup. Returning users just type the email and password and click Continue.
• Continue With Google — One-click sign-in with your Google account. If it's your first time, Ratel asks you to pick a username and accept the terms; after that Google logins are instant.
• Continue With Wallet — Connects via WalletConnect, which lets you pair any wallet that supports it (MetaMask, Rainbow, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, and many others) by scanning a QR code or tapping a deep link. You'll be asked to sign a short message to prove you own the wallet — no transaction, no gas fee.

Forgot your password? Click Forgot password? under the password field and we'll email you a reset link.

💡 Tip: A wallet is optional for everyday browsing, posting, and commenting, but it's required for some on-chain features (e.g. credentials, future on-chain settlement). You can connect a wallet later from your settings.

Connect your networks (onboarding)

Right after signup, Ratel offers you a one-step Connections onboarding page at:

/onboarding/connections

The page is the friendly first-run version of Settings → Connections. It explains what cross-posting is — "Your first post reaches three networks instantly" — and gives you a card per destination so you can connect once and have every Ratel post fan out to your other social timelines with a backlink.

Each card on the onboarding page:

Platform	Status today	What the card says
Bluesky	Live	AT Protocol · 300 chars. Connects via app password (you generate one at bsky.app/settings/app-passwords and Ratel stores it encrypted).
LinkedIn (Coming soon)	OAuth integration arrives in Phase 1B	Your professional network · 3,000 chars. Notify me button instead of Connect.
Threads (Coming soon)	Meta OAuth integration arrives in Phase 1C	Meta · ~275M users · 500 chars. Requires an Instagram Professional account once it ships.
Farcaster (Coming soon — Phase 2)	Frames integration + agent posting in Phase 2	320 chars · Web3-native. Notify me button.

You can Skip for now → at the top of the page and the onboarding closes — Ratel won't nag you about it again. To come back later, open Settings → Connections at /<your-handle>/settings/connections whenever you're ready. Whatever you connect on the onboarding page is already saved when you skip the rest.

Pro tip from the page itself: "Creators who connect 2+ networks get 3.4× more subscribers in their first 30 days."

Set up your profile

The first thing to pick is your handle. This becomes your home on Ratel — your profile, your posts, your spaces, your drafts, and your rewards all live under /<your-handle>. For example, if your handle is alex:

• /alex — your profile home
• /alex/posts — posts you've written
• /alex/spaces — spaces you've created or joined
• /alex/rewards — rewards you've earned
• /alex/drafts — drafts in progress
• /alex/settings — account & profile settings

Go to /your-handle/settings to fill in:

• Display name — the name shown on your posts and comments
• Avatar — your profile picture (any image you upload)
• Banner — a wider header image shown on your profile page
• Bio — a short description of who you are and what you write about

Click Save when you're done. Changes are visible immediately.

Connect external accounts

Ratel can talk to the platforms you already use. Open /your-handle/settings/connections to manage them. Each connection uses OAuth — you authenticate on the provider's site, Ratel never sees your password, and you can revoke access at any time from the same page.

Icon	Platform	What it does
	Bluesky	Cross-post your Ratel posts to Bluesky
	LinkedIn (planned / 예정)	Cross-post to your LinkedIn feed
	Threads (planned / 예정)	Cross-post to Threads
	Notion (planned / 예정)	Pull your Notion docs into your Essence as a source

To connect a platform, click Connect next to its name and follow the OAuth prompt. Once connected, you can:

• Toggle auto-post on a per-platform basis (whether new Ratel posts publish automatically)
• Disconnect at any time — connections are per-user and revocable

💡 Tip: First time signing up? You'll see a guided Connections onboarding step at /onboarding/connections — feel free to skip it and come back later.

Orient yourself

Ratel's main surfaces are the same on desktop and mobile, just rearranged:

• Top navbar — search, notifications, and your profile menu (top-right). Your profile menu links to your profile, drafts, settings, and sign-out.
• Sidebar / left rail — quick links to Home, Membership, Credentials, Rewards, and Settings, plus the language and theme toggles in the footer. The collapse button () at the very bottom toggles the rail between full-width and icon-only.
• Notifications — the bell icon shows unread activity: replies, mentions, follow requests, space invitations, and reward updates.
• Theme toggle — switch between dark (default), light, and system modes. Ratel respects your choice across pages and devices.
• Language toggle — Ratel speaks English and 한국어. The flag in the sidebar footer flips locales.

On mobile, the sidebar collapses behind a menu button and the navbar stays pinned to the top. Everything else works the same — write, vote, join spaces, and check notifications on the go.

Stay on top of notifications

Click the bell icon in the top navbar to open your notifications panel. The icon shows an unread-count badge whenever there's something new (capped at 100+ for sanity).

Inside the panel:

• Newest first — your inbox is paginated; scroll for older items.
• Click an item — opens whatever it points at (a post, a comment thread, a Space action, a reward event) and marks the item as read.
• Mark all as read — a single button at the top of the panel clears the badge in one shot.
• Unread-only filter — toggle to hide already-read items and focus on what's new.

Notifications fire for replies to your posts, mentions of your handle, new follow relationships, Space invitations and new actions in Spaces you've joined, sub-team application updates, and reward events (cycle locks, claims). Email or push delivery preferences are (Coming soon) — for now the bell is the canonical surface.

First-day checklist

Spend ten minutes ticking these off and Ratel will start feeling like home:

• Pick a handle and fill in your profile — display name, avatar, banner, bio
• Write your first post — share an idea, a question, or a link from /posts
• Like a post and follow someone — likes and follows feed your Essence and the platform's recommendations
• Browse or join a space — spaces are where collective work happens (polls, discussions, quizzes, follow quests)
• Open an action — vote in a poll, answer a quiz, or weigh in on a discussion
• Connect at least one external account — start with Bluesky from /your-handle/settings/connections
• Peek at your Essence — Visit /essence to see every source feeding your Essence today.

That's it — you're set up. Next up: writing posts and joining spaces.

💡 Tip: Stuck on something? Check the Troubleshooting section in the sidebar, or ping us from the Help menu in your profile dropdown.