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Guided setup

This is the walkthrough for connecting centraid to Clawgnition. You will create a vault, create an API key, paste three values into centraid, and watch your first backup arrive. It takes a few minutes and needs no code.

Before you start

You need two things:

  • A Clawgnition beta account. Sign up with your invite at app.clawgnition.ai. During the private beta your storage allowance is comped — there is nothing to pay and no card to add.
  • A centraid client set up to use a hosted storage provider. You keep your own encryption keys and formats; Clawgnition never sees them.

The dashboard walks you through these same four steps in its "Connect centraid to this vault" block. This page is the companion you can read start to finish.

The three values you will collect

Setup comes down to copying three values from the Clawgnition dashboard into centraid's hosted-storage settings. Here they are up front, so the steps below make sense:

Value What it is Where it comes from
Gateway endpoint The Clawgnition web address centraid talks to. Shown and copyable in the Connect block. In production this is https://api.clawgnition.ai.
API key Your sk-claw_… access token. centraid sends it to prove the request is yours. Step 2 below — shown once when you create it.
Vault id Which vault to back up to. Step 1 below — the monospace identifier under the vault name.

Step 1 — Create a vault

A vault is the destination for one collection of your centraid data.

  1. Open the Vaults screen — it is the dashboard's home page.
  2. Click Create vault, give it a name (for example, the name of the centraid workspace it holds), and confirm.
  3. Open the new vault. Its vault id is the monospace identifier shown under the vault name in the detail panel. That is the value centraid needs to address this vault.

Step 2 — Create an API key

An API key is the token centraid uses to reach your vaults on your behalf. It starts with sk-claw_.

  1. Open the API Keys screen, or use the "Create an API key" link inside the Connect block.
  2. Click Create key, give it a name that tells you which device it is for (for example my-laptop), and create it.
  3. Clawgnition shows the full sk-claw_… value once. Copy it now — you will paste it into centraid in step 3, and it cannot be shown again.
  4. Optional but worth it: expand Test this key → Check access. This runs the exact call centraid makes to reach your vaults and confirms the key works before you leave the dialog.

The key value is shown only once. If you close the dialog without copying it, you cannot reveal it again — but this is not a disaster: just create a new key and delete the old one. Losing the value of an API key never puts your data at risk. That is very different from losing your encryption key, which is irreplaceable. See Your keys for the distinction.

Step 3 — Paste the three values into centraid

In your centraid client's hosted-storage settings, enter the three values from the table above: the gateway endpoint, your API key, and the vault id. Save the settings.

From here, centraid seals each snapshot on your device and uploads the encrypted bytes directly to storage. Clawgnition never holds your key or a readable byte — see How it works for the full picture.

Step 4 — Confirm your first backup

Once your device finishes uploading its first snapshot, it appears on the vault automatically. You can confirm it landed two ways:

  • Vault list — the Last snapshot column changes from a dash to a relative age, such as "2 hr ago".
  • Vault detail — the Last snapshot line and the snapshot history fill in, along with usage tiles for the vault.

If your first backup has not shown up after a while, open centraid on that device and check its backup status. A brand-new vault that never completes a first backup gets a one-time reminder email — see Staying fresh.

Set a check-in cadence

While you are in centraid's settings, make sure the client declares a check-in cadence — how often it expects to back up. This is what lets Clawgnition notice if your device goes quiet and email you. A client that never declares a cadence cannot trigger that safety email, so this small step is worth doing. Full details on Staying fresh.

Common questions

I closed the key dialog before copying the value. What now?

Create a new API key and paste that one into centraid instead, then delete the old key. Nothing about your stored data is affected. See Your keys.

Can I use one key for several devices or vaults?

You can, but a key named per device makes it easy to revoke access for one machine without disturbing the others. Create as many keys as you find useful.

Where do my encryption keys go in all this?

They stay in centraid, on your device. The API key above is only an access token for the Clawgnition service; it is not the key that seals your data. Keep the two clearly separate in your mind — Your keys explains why.