# Dashboard quickstart

Create a text agent, test its draft, publish Main, and verify the published behavior from the dashboard.

## Prerequisites

You need a dashboard account with access to a workspace. The workspace must also be activated with a positive daily usage allowance before Test Chat or any other conversation can open. A newly registered workspace defaults to a daily limit of `0`, so dashboard access alone is not enough.

Only an Operade operator can activate a workspace or set or increase its daily allowance. Workspace owners and admins can view usage, but cannot activate the workspace or change its allowance. There is no activation or allowance control in this quickstart. A workspace member can create and edit an agent; publishing can also be limited by the selected branch and workspace role.

Keep a short sample customer question and the expected answer nearby. This makes the final verification concrete.

## Create and configure the agent

1. Open your workspace, select **Agents**, then select **New agent**.
2. Choose **Blank Agent**. Operade creates the agent with a Main branch and opens Agent Studio.
3. Rename the agent if needed.
4. In **System prompt**, describe the job, boundaries, and response style. For example: `Answer order-status questions using only the information provided.`
5. Add a **First message**, or leave it empty so the agent waits for the customer to start.
6. Choose the language and an active runtime model: `gpt-5-mini` or `gpt-5`. Adjust temperature only when the selected model supports it. See [models](/docs/agents/models) for the difference between a listed option and an active adapter.

Changes are saved as your draft on the active branch. They do not replace the published version until you publish.

## Test, publish Main, and verify a conversation

1. Open **Test panel** and select **Start test conversation**.
2. Turn on **Use the draft you're editing** and send your sample question.
3. If you edit the configuration while the conversation is open, start a new conversation. An open conversation keeps the configuration it started with.
4. When the result is correct, stay on the **Main** branch, select **Publish**, review the difference, and select **Publish now**.
5. End the old test chat. Start a new test chat with the draft option off, then send the same question to verify the published conversation.
6. Open **Conversations**, open the latest test conversation, and confirm the published response in **Transcript**.

The first verification is activation: Test Chat must open a conversation and show its normal connected state. If the workspace allowance is still `0`, the panel reports `workspace_not_activated` and no conversation opens. After an Operade operator sets a positive allowance, start a new test conversation and confirm that it accepts the sample question and returns an agent response.

Test conversations are excluded from version statistics, but they still use the workspace allowance and let you check the agent response before connecting a customer channel.

## Recovery and next steps

- If saving fails, use the retry action before publishing.
- If Test Chat reports `workspace_not_activated`, stop retrying and contact an Operade operator to activate the workspace and set a positive daily usage allowance. Reopen Test Chat after the allowance changes.
- If Test Chat reports `quota_exceeded`, the workspace had a positive allowance but has reached it for the current UTC day. Workspace owners and admins can view usage; contact an Operade operator if the allowance needs to increase.
- If another person publishes first, reset to the latest version or reconcile the draft when prompted.
- If the test panel disconnects, reconnect and send the message again. A message that failed during a disconnect is not sent automatically.
- If publishing says there are no changes, the draft matches the branch tip.

Next steps: refine [prompt and first message](/docs/agents/prompt-and-first-message), understand [draft and publish](/docs/agents/draft-and-publish), add [workspace knowledge](/docs/knowledge/add-sources), or ask a workspace admin to [connect and test a Google Sheets Tool](/docs/tools/google-sheets). Google Sheets connection and configuration stay in the dashboard; they are not an API-key step in this quickstart.