---
title: First steps
slug: /getting-started
description: New to the CLIKA Platform? Start here. What it is, the five-minute mental model, and a tutorial that ends with a benchmark result you can read.
---

New to the platform? This section is where to start. It gives you enough of the model to hold the whole product in your head, then walks you from an empty fleet to the numbers of your first benchmark. Read it in order:

1. **[The Platform at a glance](overview.mdx)**: what the platform is and is not, who it is for, and the five ideas the rest is built on.
2. **Tutorial: your first benchmark**: six parts, each a complete step, with concepts explained where they first appear. [Take the tour](first-benchmark/01-overview.md), [add your first device](first-benchmark/02-add-your-first-device.md), [pick a device](first-benchmark/03-pick-a-device.md), [add a model](first-benchmark/04-add-a-model.md), [run a benchmark](first-benchmark/05-run-a-benchmark.md), and [read the results](first-benchmark/06-read-the-results.md).
3. **[What to read next](next-steps.md)**: where to go once you have a result.
4. **Quickstarts**, when you already know what you want and need one screen per way in: [the web application](quickstarts/web.md), [the CLI](quickstarts/cli.md), [an AI assistant over MCP](quickstarts/mcp.md) and [a licensed runtime on your own machine](quickstarts/licensing.md). Each ends in a first result and says how long each step takes.

You need an account on a CLIKA Platform deployment, and a machine you can install software on. The tutorial's second part registers that machine and says what qualifies; if your team already runs a fleet you can skip it. An account comes from an invitation sent by an organization that already exists, or from a signup code that creates a new organization with you as its owner: [Sign up with a signup code](sign-up-with-a-signup-code.md) covers the second. Public self-service signup is closed during the alpha, so the sign-in page points an unregistered address to support.

## How the Platform docs are layered

- **This section** orients: condensed, in reading order, concepts woven in.
- **[Concepts](../concepts/index.md)**: one page per object (organization, project, device, model, artifact, benchmark, job, service, deployment), for when you need the full picture of one thing.
- **[How-to guides](../how-to/index.md)**: problem-oriented recipes, from writing a job definition to managing API keys.
- **[Using the CLI](../cli/index.md)**: the platform from a terminal, from the first command to every `clika-cli` command with its arguments and flags.
- **[Using with AI (MCP)](../mcp/index.md)**: connecting Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex and other MCP clients to the platform.