> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zespan.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Sign-up and onboarding > Create your Zespan account, verify your email, set up your first organization and project, and send a sample trace to see the dashboard before your own app is instrumented. This page walks through what you see from sign-up to your first trace. To instrument your application, follow the [Quickstart](https://docs.zespan.com/quickstart.md). ## Sign up Sign up with your email and a password, or with Google, GitHub, or Microsoft. **1. Accept the Terms** The Terms box comes first. Tick **I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy** to unlock the rest of the form: until you do, the social sign-in buttons, the name, email and password fields, and **Sign up** are disabled, with "Agree to continue." beneath the box. If something still tries to submit without it, nothing is sent: focus moves to the checkbox and the message "Please accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to continue." appears under it. **2. Make your optional choices** Two optional boxes — **Product analytics** (usage analytics and masked session replay) and **Product emails** (updates and announcements) — are never ticked for you, and neither is required to use Zespan. **What these mean** shows the full wording. Sign-up doesn't ask about advertising measurement at all; it is treated as not consented. You can change your choices at any time under **Settings → Privacy**. See [Privacy](https://docs.zespan.com/account/privacy.md#privacy-choices). **3. Verify your email** After an email sign-up, the **Check your email** screen asks you to open the verification link. Check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive. Sign-up and sign-in pages may also show a **See a demo** link that opens a demo of the dashboard. ## Verification email If the verification email doesn't arrive: * On the **Check your email** screen, click **Resend verification email**. You can resend once every 60 seconds, and a few times per hour for each address. * Click **Use a different email** if you mistyped your address. (This isn't offered when you're signing up from an invitation.) * If a verification link is missing or has expired, the verify-email page offers the same resend option. If you try to sign in before verifying, Zespan shows **Your email isn't verified yet** with the resend option. Zespan doesn't resend automatically. For privacy, the resend response is the same whether or not an account exists for the address. ## Set up your organization and project The onboarding wizard creates your first [organization](https://docs.zespan.com/account/organizations.md) and project. To get you started faster, it suggests: * **An organization name** from a work email domain — for example, `acme.io` suggests "Acme". With a free-mail address it suggests "\'s workspace" or "My workspace". * **The project name** `my-first-app`. * **The `development` environment.** Suggestions fill only empty fields you haven't touched, and only if you don't already belong to an organization. They're worked out in your browser without any lookup, and you can edit them freely. They never tick a consent box. ### Your API key is shown once When the wizard creates your project, it shows the project's API key **one time**. Copy it before you continue; if you leave without confirming you've stored it, Zespan warns that you will have to rotate the key to get a new one. Rotating is done from the project's **Settings → API Keys** page — see [API keys](https://docs.zespan.com/account/api-keys.md#creating-and-managing-project-keys). ## Send a sample trace While onboarding waits for your first trace, click **Send a sample trace** to see what a trace looks like before your own app is instrumented. Zespan sends three spans to the project — an agent run, one model call, and one tool call — under the service name `zespan-sample`. * **One per project.** Pressing the button again returns the same trace and says it was already sent. * **Marked as a sample.** The trace shows a **Sample** badge in the [Traces](https://docs.zespan.com/dashboard/traces.md) list. Onboarding keeps waiting for your own first call, and the sample doesn't count as your first trace. * **Counts as normal usage.** It goes through the normal ingest pipeline, so it counts 3 events toward your plan's quota, and PII redaction applies as for any trace. It doesn't trigger anomaly detection or automatic evaluations. Sending a sample trace requires the **Manage projects** permission (Owner or Admin). ### From the API `POST /v1/projects/{id}/sample-trace` sends the sample trace. It authenticates with your dashboard session. | Response | When | | - | - | | `202 { "traceId", "alreadySent": false }` | The sample trace was sent. | | `200 { "traceId", "alreadySent": true }` | A sample trace was already sent for this project. | | `403` | Your role can't manage projects. | | `404` | The project isn't in your organization. | | `429` with `Retry-After` | More than 5 calls per hour, or your event quota is used up (`quota_exceeded`). | | `503` with `Retry-After` | The trace couldn't be queued. Nothing was recorded, so retry. | ## Choosing a project After you sign in, **Choose a project** lists the projects in your organization, newest first, with the date each was created. Pick one to open its dashboard. If the organization has none yet, the page says so; owners and admins see **New project**, and everyone else is told to ask an owner or admin to create one. If your organization [requires two-factor authentication](https://docs.zespan.com/account/organizations.md#requiring-two-factor-authentication) and you haven't enrolled, this page shows **Two-factor authentication required** with a link to **Settings → Profile → Security** instead of the list; see [Account security](https://docs.zespan.com/account/security.md#two-factor-authentication). ## Next steps * [Quickstart](https://docs.zespan.com/quickstart.md) — instrument your application and send your first real trace * [Account security](https://docs.zespan.com/account/security.md) — set up two-factor authentication and review your sessions * [Privacy](https://docs.zespan.com/account/privacy.md) — change your privacy choices at any time * [Organizations](https://docs.zespan.com/account/organizations.md) — invite your team and manage roles This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.