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Getting started

Quickstart: your first agent in 5 minutes

Sign up, add your AI provider key, create a site and an agent, publish it, paste one script tag, and test your live chat widget.

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This guide takes you from nothing to a working AI chat agent on your own website. Plan on about five minutes, plus the time it takes your AI provider to issue a key. You will need a website where you can edit the HTML (or a platform with a custom-code setting) and a credit card or prepaid balance with one AI provider, because SiteTrellis does not resell AI usage. See Core concepts if you want the full picture first.

  1. Create your account. Go to the sign-up page, enter your details, and confirm your email address from the verification message. New accounts start on the Free plan, which includes one site, one agent and 100 conversations per month.
  2. Get an AI provider key. Create an API key with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenRouter or DeepSeek. The provider pages walk you through it: Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, DeepSeek.
  3. Add the key in the dashboard. Open AI providers, choose the provider, give the key a label, paste it, and save. SiteTrellis runs a quick test call and shows the key as ok or failing. The key is encrypted and only its last few characters are ever shown again.
  4. Create a site. Open Sites and add one. Enter a name and your website's domain. Add your website's origin (for example https://www.example.com) to the allowed origins list.
  5. Build an agent. Open Agents, create a new agent for that site, and start from a template such as support or lead generation. Fill in the persona, greeting and any knowledge the agent should use. In the model section add a step that uses the key you saved and pick a model from the list.
  6. Test it in the playground. The playground runs your draft, so you can try questions, see how it handles things it should not answer, and adjust before anyone sees it. Playground conversations do not count toward your plan.
  7. Publish. Publishing validates the configuration (for example, it needs at least one working model step) and creates a numbered version. Until you publish, the widget on your website has nothing to show.
  8. Paste the snippet. Copy the embed snippet from your site's page in the dashboard and paste it into your pages, just before the closing </body> tag.

The embed snippet#

The snippet is a single script tag. Your site's public id (it starts with site_) is shown in the dashboard; the value below is a placeholder.

<script src="https://cdn.sitetrellis.com/v/a44108d9c4521120/widget.js" data-site="site_xxxxxxxx" async></script>

That is the whole installation. Appearance changes you make later in the dashboard are fetched by the widget when it loads, so you do not need to touch your website again. Platform-specific instructions: any HTML site, WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and Google Tag Manager.

Test the live widget#

  1. Open your website in a normal browser tab and hard-refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R, or Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac).
  2. You should see the round launcher button in the bottom-right corner. Click it and send a message.
  3. Open Conversations in the dashboard. Your test chat appears there with the full transcript.
Nothing showing? The three usual causes are: the agent is not published, the site's allowed origins list does not include the exact origin you are testing from, or a cache or optimization plugin is serving an old copy of your page. The troubleshooting guide covers each.

A sensible first setup#

  • Keep the first prompt short. A few clear sentences about what your business does and what the agent should and should not do beat pages of instructions. See the prompt writing guide.
  • Turn on strict mode if accuracy matters. With strict knowledge mode the agent answers only from the knowledge you paste in and offers to connect the visitor with a person otherwise.
  • Add a second model step. The Free plan allows a two-step fallback chain. If your first provider is slow or rate limited, the next step answers instead. See AI keys overview.
  • Set a spend limit at your AI provider. You pay the provider directly for each reply. A monthly limit protects you from surprises.
  • Decide about people. If your team will answer chats, set up escalation and invite teammates (Team and roles).

Questions about limits or what SiteTrellis does not do? See the FAQ.

Tip Keep the dashboard open in one tab and your site in another while you tune the agent. Publish a small improvement, refresh the site, and chat again. Every publish is a version you can roll back.