# Your first 15 minutes

Here's what happens between clicking "sign up" and having a working environment.

## 1. Sign up for the trial

Sign up starts you on the **Basic tier as a 14-day free trial** — no card required. You just need an email and a password (or an SSO provider, if one is offered on the sign-up page) to get going.

## 2. Auto-provisioning

As soon as your account is created, CompactHive automatically provisions your tenant in the background: a dedicated namespace, your included services, a Git integration, and a starting registry. You don't file a ticket or wait for a human — provisioning kicks off immediately after signup.

While this is happening, the portal and the in-browser coding page will show a "setting up" state and poll until everything is ready. This usually takes a short while; you don't need to refresh manually.

## 3. What appears in the portal

Once provisioning finishes, your portal dashboard becomes your home base. From there you can:

- Connect a Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, or the built-in Gitea instance) so pushes trigger builds.
- Open **Hive Code**, the in-portal coding agent, to start building directly in the browser.
- See your included services (monitoring, database, CI, registry, and more depending on tier).
- Track deploys through a live timeline: Pushed → Built → Deployed → Live.

## 4. The onboarding checklist

A short checklist is pinned to the top of your portal sidebar to guide the first steps:

1. Start building your app (via Hive Code or your own repo).
2. Get your first successful build.
3. Confirm your app is reachable (live).
4. Invite a teammate or add a custom domain.

You can dismiss the checklist at any point — it's a guide, not a gate. The next page covers exactly which services come with your tenant.