The setup prompt
Copy the line below into an AI assistant that can run commands on your computer — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor. Answer the questions it asks, then open the link it gives you.
Set me up on Lotics: fetch https://lotics.ai/docs/prompt.md and follow it.
For the assistant
You are setting up a Lotics workspace for the person you are talking to. They never see
commands, file contents, ids, findings or error text — you handle all of that. They answer
one message of questions, at most two short follow-ups, and receive a link.
1. Install the command line, even if it is already there — the same command upgrades in
place and does nothing when it is current. On macOS, Linux or WSL:
curl -fsSL https://lotics.ai/install.sh | bash
In Windows PowerShell: irm https://lotics.ai/install.ps1 | iex
This needs nothing already on the machine — no Node, no npm.
If you also have Lotics tools or a Lotics connector, do not use them here: they can point
at a different workspace than the command line does.
2. Ask them, in ONE message: what do they manage, what do they track about it today — the
columns in their spreadsheet, the things that have names — and which email address the
account should be under. Plain words, no list of categories: what they call their work is
what their tables will be called. If they mention a spreadsheet, ask them for the file
and read its first row: those columns are the fields, in their words. If the answer
leaves you unsure what the main things are, ask one follow-up. Then stop asking.
3. Run: lotics library list
It needs no account. It prints the presets first — each a trade's data model, published to
be READ — and then the packages, each a setup someone already built: some a whole workspace
with its apps, some a single app for one job. If ONE package's apps cover the work they
described — all of it, not part of it — tell them in one sentence that a ready-made setup
for that work exists and you will use it, then go straight to step 7 — that package carries
its own tables and apps, so there is no model to write or check. Otherwise say nothing
about them.
4. If one of the presets is their trade, run lotics library show <its slug> and write
`model.json` as:
{ "from": "<that preset's slug>",
"variants": ["<the branch whose when matches what they said>"],
"rename": { "<its entity alias>": { "label": "<their word for that table>",
"fields": { "<its field alias>": "<their word>" } } },
"entities": [ … tables they described that the preset does not carry, written the
same way as from scratch … ],
"rows": { "<its entity alias>": [ { "ref": "r1", "fields": { … } } ] } }
Do NOT restate the preset's tables — `from` already carries them. `rename` is for every
label they call something else, and nothing more; `entities` only for a table it does not
carry at all; `rows` are the real examples they gave, never invented ones. Ask the
preset's own questions only about what their one message left unanswered — at most two,
in one message, and then stop asking.
If none of the presets is their trade, run lotics scaffold docs and write the file from
their answers alone: their words as table and field names, links between the things that
refer to each other, and the real examples they gave as first rows, never invented ones.
5. For each table, if one of the packages is a single app for that table's shape — a register,
a pipeline, a ledger, a schedule — add an entry under `apply`:
{ "package": "<its id>",
"bind": { "<its entity alias>": { "label": "<their name for that table>",
"fields": { "<its field alias>": "<their name>" } } } }
If none of them is, the tables are where they land.
6. Run: lotics scaffold check model.json
and fix every finding until it is clean. All of this is silent: do not show them the file,
the findings or the commands.
7. Create everything in one command:
lotics setup model.json --email <email>
or, for the package: lotics setup <starter_id> --email <email>
It creates the account and the workspace on Lotics's own servers — nothing is built on
this machine — and ends by printing a one-time sign-in link.
If it says the email already has an account, it prints a link and a four-character code:
tell them to open the link, sign in if they are asked to, check that the page shows those
four characters and press Confirm, then run the same command again. If it says this
machine is already signed in, run it without --email. If it lists several workspaces instead of running, name
them to the person by their names alone and let them pick one; then select it and run the
command again. If it refuses because the workspace already has tables, or a copy reports an
app without a version, stop and tell them in plain words what happened; never run it again
and never pass --adopt.
8. Give them the link immediately — it EXPIRES IN FIFTEEN MINUTES — before you do anything
else. If none was printed, run lotics auth web , which emails them one, and say so.
9. Then tell them, in their own words, what they now have: each table by the name they gave
it, and that the chat inside Lotics works on those tables — they can ask it there to add
a field, change a view or fix a row. Offer to change anything now. Later additions are
yours to run, not theirs to know: more tables or fields is an edit to `model.json` and
lotics scaffold apply model.json
which adds what is new and never renames or deletes; renaming goes through the chat
or lotics run update_table .