Quickstart: your first hour with Sequential

After sign-up, onboarding shows four steps: Organisation, Project, Install and Agent. A project is one app or site. The person who creates the organisation is its owner. See Organisations, projects and keys.

The Install step has two tabs. It opens on Ask your coding agent: press Copy prompt and give the prompt to your agent. On Paste the snippet, press Copy snippet to copy the code for the source that you picked. The button then reads Copied. Then open your app in a normal browser.

From 15 October 2026, a card next to the code listens for your first event. On a narrow screen, the card is below the code. It shows one of these lines:

• "Listening for your first event…": nothing arrived yet.
• "Your app reached Sequential. The first events show here within about a minute.": a request with your key arrived. If no event is stored 2 minutes later, the card says when the requests arrived, "but no events are stored." It also says "Sequential doesn't store visits from automated browsers". For example, an agent that checks the install with a headless browser causes this.
• "Your app is sending. The first events show here within about a minute.": Sequential has data from your app, but no event that it can show yet.
• It works, the number of events in the last 24 hours and the host of the newest event, such as "12 events · newest from shop.example.com".
• The pause message, when recording is paused for the organisation.

The card checks every 5 seconds, only while the tab is visible, for 30 minutes. Then it says "Stopped checking after 30 minutes." and shows Check again. When you come back to the tab, it checks at once.

When events arrive, the card lists the 5 newest, each with its name, host and time. It shows no property values. An identify call reads "Identified a visitor". The list updates for 2 minutes. After that, press Refresh. With It works, the card also shows the Browser of the newest event and a Replay line: "Checking recording…", "Recording · ready by" and a time, Recorded with Watch the session, or "Couldn't check recording". It shows "No recording" only from 60 seconds after the newest event.

If Sequential refused data from your app in the last 7 days, the card shows the reasons and the fixes until it says It works. See Troubleshooting.

Under the card are two links: Read the install guide and Nothing arrives? What to check. On Paste the snippet, under the code, the step says "A public key: it is safe in your page's source." On both tabs, the step says that Session replay masks all text and inputs by default, with a link to Masking options.

Until the card says It works, the button at the bottom is Skip for now, with "This step waits on your dashboard." After that, the button is Continue. Both open the Agent step. See Connect your agent.

From 15 October 2026, after onboarding creates the project, the address reads /onboarding?project=<id>&step=install, and step=agent on the Agent step. It holds only these two values. A reload, or a phone that closes the tab, opens the same step again, with the same project and its keys. This works only for a project that is not archived, in an organisation where your role can create projects: owner or admin. Otherwise onboarding starts again. If the keys cannot load after a reload, the Install step says "Sequential could not load this project's keys." with Try again.

You can find the install code later in Settings → Projects → your project → Setup.

Onboarding always creates a production project.

To add a staging or development project, go to Settings → Projects → New project. Choose the Environment. A project of this kind records 10 % of sessions by default. See Sampling in its Session replay settings.

1. On Setup, under Install with your AI agent, press Copy prompt. The prompt includes your keys.
2. Paste it into your coding agent.

Setup shows the code with your keys filled in.

On websites, the Sequential SDK and the Smartlook script start the recorder for you. With PostHog, Mixpanel, Amplitude or Pendo, the recorder is the extra line from step 2.

• The Session replay line changes after a page visit longer than the minimum recording length. The default is 2 s.
• The Sources card checks again every few seconds for 5 minutes. To keep checking, reload the page.
• Session replay can take up to about 7 minutes to show "receiving". The card checks for 5 minutes, so reload the page if it has not changed.
• A first event can take up to about a minute to appear. When one line shows "receiving", the other lines can take up to about two minutes to update.
• To change the minimum recording length, see Skip sessions under (ms) in the project's Session replay settings.

A user id, an email or an account key all work. Sequential uses the value exactly as you pass it.

Until you identify a visitor, their events carry an anonymous id for each browser. Sequential stores the events sent before identify under the anonymous id.

With a vendor SDK, Users also lists the anonymous id from before your test sign-in. With the Sequential SDK, PostHog or Mixpanel, it lists that id only until the link to your value shows, up to 5 minutes later.

• The Sequential SDK captures page views, clicks and form submits itself.
• Business moments need their own events. Other examples are signing up and inviting a teammate.
• Names that start with $ are reserved. capture() throws an error on them.
• Vendor calls such as mixpanel.track keep their names.
• You can use custom events as funnel steps. The judge also reads them. See steps 8 and 9.

Replay is on for new projects.

With Strict masking, replays look like a wireframe.

Sequential captures errors, console, network and performance by default.

Strict also blocks images, SVG, media and iframes. It cuts link and image addresses to their domain, so web fonts and CSS background images do not load in the replay.

Balanced masks all inputs. It masks only the text you mark with data-sq-mask or the sq-mask class. It records images and SVG. It still blocks video, audio and iframes. It records attribute values and the full page address. See Masking and redaction.

To change to Balanced:

1. Mark the sensitive elements in your app.
2. Choose Balanced.
3. Press Save.
4. Under Loosen masking?, type the project slug.
5. Press Apply.

Changes apply from the next page load. They never apply to earlier recordings.

You set mobile masking in the app's PostHog SDK.

In Latest, if you cannot play the session now, the row says why in place of ▶ Replay. "Processing · ready by 14:05", with a time, means that Sequential is still preparing the recording in 5-minute periods. Wait until that time. The row then shows ▶ without a reload.

Sequential builds the Latest list from analytics events. So a recording appears only if the same session also sent events.

If the recording shows no events, the recording and the events had different session ids. See Troubleshooting.

The Insights tab judges the session on demand, from a daily allowance per project.

If you press Re-run a second time on the same session within 10 minutes of the previous run, you get the saved result. The judge does not judge the session again.

See Session insights.

Each row has a short reason. It also has Watch from m:ss, Open replay or Open events.

• The judge judges a session with at least 3 meaningful events. System events do not count.
• Judging starts about 30 minutes after the session's last event.
• The judge reads the session's events, not the recording.
• A 👍 or 👎 on a row you checked records whether the row was right. The judge does not judge the session again.

The default rubric is generic. It cannot know your product's own moments, such as reaching bulk upload.

For a yes-or-no question, press + Add signal. In Try it, the judge answers your draft before you save it.

A good question:

• can be answered by the judge from events, session facts and error counts. The judge never sees the screen.
• asks one thing.
• asks what happened, not how someone felt. For example: "Did they click the same control repeatedly?"

Try it has its own daily allowance. So it does not use the allowance of background judging.

After you save, older sessions show "judged with an earlier rubric" in Watch. If you change what the judge asks, the Calibration counts also start again.

See Roles and permissions.

A role covers every project in the organisation.

To accept, a teammate signs in with the invited address. That address must be verified.

If you press Resend under Pending invitations, the 48 hours start again.

Role	In the app
Owner	Full control, including deleting the organisation.
Admin	Manages members, projects, keys and settings.
Member	Explores analytics and replays. Can use AI.
Viewer	Read-only access to analytics and replays.

• After Create token, the step shows "Waiting for your agent…". It checks every 5 seconds if the token was used, but only while the browser tab is visible.
• After 30 minutes, it stops checking and shows "No call from your agent yet." and Check again. Check again checks once, then checks for 30 more minutes.
• When the token was used and still works, the step shows "Your agent called Sequential …" and how long ago the last use was. A request that Sequential accepts with the token counts as a use. On /mcp, the first connection already counts. If the agent's MCP client sent its name, the step also shows "It identified itself as …". The client chooses this name. Sequential does not check it.
• The step has one button to leave. Until your agent uses the new token, the button is Skip for now. After that, it is Go to dashboard. Next to Skip for now, the step says "Whatever you skip waits on your dashboard." Both buttons open Dashboard. Neither creates a token. If you already pressed Create token, the token stays. Revoke it on Agents if you do not use it.
• If background judging is off for the project, the step says why. For example: "Background judging is switched off for this project. Your agent still sees every session's pages and errors, but new sessions come without verdicts or friction." The reasons are the same as on Watch. If Sequential cannot tell whether background judging is running, the step shows no note.
• Members and viewers see "Connecting an agent needs an admin", then "An owner or admin connects Claude and ChatGPT for this project."
• On Setup, Add an agent access token to this prompt is in the bottom bar of the Install with your AI agent card, next to Copy prompt. It creates a token with the same scopes and adds a section to the prompt: "Connect the Sequential MCP server (optional)". The section has the Claude Code command with the token. It tells any other agent to add the same URL and Authorization header to its user-level MCP config. Then it tells the agent to confirm the connection with one call to list_sessions. If the Sequential tools load only in a new session, the agent tells you to restart it and makes the call then. The same bar then says "The token in this prompt is shown once. Copy the prompt now, and treat it like a password." and "The token expires in 90 days." If you reload or leave the page, the prompt no longer has the token.
• Dashboard has a setup checklist that continues onboarding. See The setup checklist on Dashboard below.
• For the tools that an agent gets, see Agent tools. For the scopes and limits, see Limits.

Dashboard has a setup checklist with three steps: Send your sessions, Connect your agent and Give it a morning. Each step has one line that says where it stands. If Sequential cannot check a step, the line says so. It never shows this as "Not connected" or as 0. Click a step to open it. One step is open at a time.

• When it shows. If the dashboard has no data for the last 30 days and the project has never sent an event, every role sees the full checklist, with the title Set up and the project name. The page then says "Three steps, and this page fills itself." and shows no tiles. Below the checklist, a card named What a judged session looks like shows a sample of a judged session from a fictional shop. It is marked "Sample · not your data". It goes when the first event of the project arrives. In other cases, a smaller card, Finish setting up, can show below the dashboard. Owners and admins see it if no token that works has been used in the project, or if this browser showed the full checklist for the project. Members and viewers see it only while the dashboard has no data for the last 30 days, and only if this browser showed the full checklist for the project. The smaller card does not show when all three steps are done. If Sequential cannot check the project's status, the checklist does not show.
• Send your sessions is done when the project has an event. Until then, the step has two tabs: Paste the snippet and Ask your coding agent. From 12 October 2026, the step opens on Ask your coding agent. Paste the snippet is one click away. Viewers see "The install snippet needs a member, admin or owner — ask one for the keys." While the step is open and the browser tab is visible, it checks for the first event every 5 seconds, for 5 minutes. Then it shows Check again. When the first event arrives, press Open the dashboard.
• Connect your agent is done when a token that works has been used, has at least one read scope and is not a trial's token. A token with only releases:write does not count. Owners and admins get the same steps as in onboarding. When the step is done, its line says "Connected", the token's name and the time of its last call.
• Give it a morning is done when one token from step 2 has called Sequential on 3 of the last 7 days. The last 7 days are today and the 6 dates before it, in UTC. The days of different tokens do not add up. Calls to the findings tools count too. Calls to record_release do not count, and failed calls do not count. Copy prompt copies a prompt for your agent. It asks the agent to set up a task for every weekday at 08:00 in its own scheduler, and to run the task once now. Sequential does not run your agent and cannot see its scheduler. Dashboard counts the days once for each visit. See each call on Agents opens Agents.
• Members and viewers cannot do steps 2 and 3. For them, step 2 says "An agent is connected" or "No agent connected yet · an owner or admin connects agents for this project." Step 3 says "An agent calls Sequential most days" or "Not yet a regular · an owner or admin sets this up." If Sequential cannot check, the line says "Couldn't check right now." They never see token names, dates or counts.
• The card shows "N of 3 done" only when Sequential knows the state of all three steps. Members and viewers see it too when Sequential knows the state of their steps.
• Hide shows when step 1 is done. It hides the checklist for this project in this browser. After the checklist shows all three steps done, it does not come back for this project in this browser, also if your agent stops its calls later. If you dismissed the old "Connect your coding agent" card for a project, the checklist does not show for that project in this browser. If the browser blocks storage, a hidden checklist can come back on your next visit.