Quick start

This path verifies the core onQ workflow in a few minutes.

1. Create or open a vault

On first launch, choose:

• Create new vault to initialize a selected directory.
• Open existing vault to unlock a directory that already contains an onQ vault.
• A path under Recent vaults to reopen or recover one used before.

Creating a vault adds prompts/ and .onq/ under the selected directory. onQ refuses creation when that directory already contains .onq/search-index.

2. Choose authentication

After selecting a new vault directory, choose one mode:

Mode	What you provide	What onQ stores	Recovery
Master password	A password and confirmation	Per-vault salt and auth-mode marker; not the password	None
No password	Nothing	A generated secret in the operating-system keychain	One 24-word recovery phrase

For a no-password vault, onQ requires you to copy the recovery phrase and confirm that it has been saved before continuing.

WARNING

A password vault cannot be recovered if its password is lost. A keychain vault cannot be recovered if both its keychain entry and 24-word phrase are lost.

Read Vault security and recovery before storing sensitive data.

3. Create a prompt

1. Open the Palette from the Home card or global shortcut.
2. Select New prompt.
3. Enter a title and body.
4. Optionally set a project path, tags, and favorite status.
5. Select Save.

A new editor is only a draft. Canceling or pressing Escape before Save writes nothing to the vault.

4. Search and copy

1. Return Home.
2. Press Win+Q on Windows, Meta+Q on Linux, or ⌘+Q on macOS.
3. Type part of the prompt title, tag, project path, or body.
4. Select the main result row.

The prompt body is copied to the clipboard and the Palette closes. Use the pencil action when you want to edit instead.

Keyword search is available immediately and stays local. Optional semantic search is configured later.

5. Organize the prompt

Open Library and try:

• selecting Favorites, Recent, or Unfiled;
• creating a project;
• moving the prompt into that project;
• selecting a tag from the tag list;
• creating a smart folder such as favorite:true.

Projects are metadata labels, not physical subdirectories. All prompt files remain under prompts/.

6. Create a template

Edit the body to contain:

Write a {{tone|concise}} summary for {{audience}}.

Copy that prompt from the Palette. onQ asks for each unique field, substitutes the values, and copies the rendered body. The stored prompt remains unchanged.

7. Make a backup

1. Open Settings > Backups.
2. Select Export backup.
3. Turn on archive password protection if the backup may leave trusted storage.
4. Save the .onqbak file somewhere outside the vault.

An unsealed full backup contains the entire vault tree, including plaintext bodies of unlocked prompts. See Backups and portability.

8. Optional: enable semantic search

1. Open Settings > Search.
2. Select Load MiniLM model.
3. Wait for the download and vault re-embedding to finish.
4. Select Refresh status.

This is the only prompt-search feature that needs a model download. The model comes from Hugging Face and is about 90 MB. Prompt text is embedded locally after download.

Next steps

• Learn ranking and model behavior in Palette and search.
• Learn projects and smart folders in Library and organization.
• Understand plaintext files and prompt locks in Vault security and recovery.
• Review current product boundaries in Feature status.