Activate your account

Your account starts on the portal. Once you’ve signed up, you generate one activation key per machine and use it to link the desktop or the CLI daemon to that account. The portal and the mobile app sign in with your email and password (or SSO); they don’t use activation keys.

What is an activation key?

A short string that starts with gp_ followed by 64 hex characters. You generate keys yourself on the portal at any time — they aren’t emailed.

Each key activates one host (one machine, or one CLI daemon). If you install on a second machine, generate a second key.

Step 1: sign up on the portal

1. Go to portal.glueprint.ai.
2. Create your account (or click your organization’s SSO link if your administrator gave you one).
3. After sign-up, the portal shows your dashboard and recovery codes — save the recovery codes somewhere safe. See Recovery codes.

Step 2: generate an activation key

1. In the portal, open Settings > Hosts. This page also lists the hosts you’ve already activated.
2. Click Create Host.
3. Fill in the form (a name for the host, optional project visibility).
4. Click Create Host.

The activation key appears once — copy it now. If you lose it before activating, delete the unused host entry from the portal and create another one.

Step 3: activate the desktop

1. Launch Glueprint. The welcome screen says Enter your software key to get started.
2. Paste the key into the field.
3. Click Activate.

The button shows Activating… while the desktop verifies the key and registers the machine as one of your hosts. When it succeeds, the main window opens to the Sessions view.

Step 3 (alternative): activate the CLI daemon

If you’re setting up Glueprint on a server, run the activate command on the server instead of the desktop install. See CLI Daemon for the command and flags. Once the daemon activates, the server shows up as a host in your portal alongside any desktops.

Sign in on mobile

The mobile app doesn’t use an activation key. Open the app, tap Sign in, then enter the email and password you used on the portal (or use your SSO sign-in link). The app reads the hosts you’ve already activated.

What happens during activation

• The key is exchanged for credentials that the desktop stores in your operating system’s secure storage (Keychain on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows, Secret Service on Linux).
• The machine is registered as a host on your account. You can see and revoke any host from the portal under Settings > Hosts.
• A wrapped data encryption key for your organization is fetched and unwrapped using the API key. From that point on, content the host syncs to the cloud relay is encrypted with that key and the relay never sees plaintext. See Cloud Relay & Encryption for the architecture.

If activation fails

You see	What it usually means	What to do
Invalid API key	The key string didn’t match anything on file.	Recopy the key from the portal — no trailing spaces or extra characters.
Key already activated	The key has been used on another machine.	Each key activates one host. Generate a fresh key from the portal.
Network error	The desktop couldn’t reach the relay.	Check the machine’s network, then click Activate again. The key isn’t consumed on failure.
At your host limit	Your plan caps the number of hosts and you’re at the cap.	Either revoke an unused host from the portal under Settings > Hosts, or upgrade your plan.

See Troubleshooting > Activation failures for deeper recovery steps.

Next step

Continue to Your first session.