Your first minutes

This page starts once Kept is running and you can open its address. Installing it is covered in Install with Docker Compose.

1. Claim the server with the setup code

The first time Kept starts with no admin, it prints a one-time setup code in its logs, as KEPT SETUP CODE: K7Q-2M9. Opening Kept’s address takes you to Set up this Kept, three steps:

1. Setup code. Type the six characters. The dash is optional and case doesn’t matter. The code stops working once it’s used. Lost the logs? kept admin setup-code issues a new one (how, under Compose).
2. First account. Your name, email and a password of at least 8 characters. This account is the instance admin: it runs the server (users, sign-up, backups). It can’t see inside anyone’s home unless they invite it.
3. Instance options. One switch: Let anyone with the address create an account. Leave it off for a household: people join through an invite, or you add them. You can change it later in Settings → Admin.

Finish setup takes you to Home.

Finish it straight away

Until setup is finished, anyone who can open the address could try to claim the server.

AI and barcode lookup aren’t part of setup. Kept works without them, and you can connect AI later (AI providers).

2. Read Home’s Get-started checklist

Home opens with Get started, one line with your progress and the next step, worked out from what you’ve really done, so steps tick themselves. The arrow opens the steps:

Step	What it asks
Put Kept on HTTPS	Shown to the instance admin while Kept is served over plain HTTP. Phones block the camera, installing Kept, push notifications and location over HTTP. See HTTPS.
Create your first home	A location, below.
Add 3 things	A few you’d hate to lose track of.
Print your first label	When Labels is on in a location.
Invite someone	A link or a QR code; nobody needs email.
Connect an AI provider	Not shown to invited members, or in a location on the Essentials preset.
Install on your phone	Ticks itself the first time you open Kept from its home-screen icon.

× hides it for good; Help → Get-started checklist → Bring it back shows it again. It goes away by itself when every step is done. More on Home in everyday use.

3. Create your first home

Everyone has a Personal location from the start: it’s yours alone (no members, invites or share links) and it’s where a capture with no location lands. Shared things belong in a location of their own. Choose Create your first home (or New location on Home):

1. What’s this place called? A name, like Home or Garage, and its kind: House, Apartment, Garage, Storage unit, Office, Vacation home or Other.
2. Rooms. The kind’s template fills in rooms and spots; rename, remove or Add room or spot. Every location also has Unplaced, for things that don’t have a place yet. Skip keeps only Unplaced.
3. What to track. Three presets:
   • Essentials: finding things: rooms, boxes, labels and search.
   • Household: adds receipts and warranties, reminders, lending, paperwork and vehicles.
   • Complete: adds fuel, things you run out of, passwords and codes, moving house, and “Connect ChatGPT or Claude”.

The timezone and currency come from your browser. Change them, and switch single modules on or off, in the location’s Location settings (General and What to track). Turning a module off hides it; nothing is deleted.

4. Add your first thing

The fastest way is Capture, the middle tab on a phone: point the camera, press the shutter, and the thing is saved where the place chip at the top says. A name is optional while you capture: with an AI provider connected, Kept names it from the photo; without one, unnamed things wait in the Inbox for a name. On a computer, Add here on a room or box adds a thing with a form. Everyday use covers capture, labels and the rest.

5. Invite people

Sharing happens per location: someone you invite to Home sees Home, and nothing else of yours. After you create a location, Home shows an Invite people to … card; the same page is under Location settings → Members → Invite.

1. Choose the Role and, under Access, No end date or Until a date. Their access, and any tokens they make, stop on that date.
2. Create invite link. You get the link with Copy link and a QR code to Scan with their phone. The link works once, for 7 days, and shows under Members as a pending invite until it’s used, where you can revoke it.
3. Send by email works only when the server has email set up (KEPT_SMTP_URL).

The person opens the link, then joins with their account or creates one; while sign-up is closed, the invite is the only way to make an account.

The roles

Role	What they can do in that location
Owner	Everything, including two-factor rules, transfer and deletion. There is one owner.
Admin	Invite and remove members and viewers, settings and modules, import and export, share links and claim packs, delete permanently. Only the owner grants or removes admins.
Member	Add, edit, move, lend and trash things; log readings and services; print labels; use AI capture. Money is visible.
Viewer	Look and search only. Money is hidden unless the location allows viewers to see it; the assistant answers but can’t change anything.

The full matrix is in the product design.

People without email

For a child or a parent with no email, an owner or admin uses Add someone without email on the Members page. Kept makes a managed account with a username and shows a one-time code (it works once, for 30 minutes). The person signs in with I have a one-time code, their username and the code, and chooses their own password; you never see it. Whoever created the account (while still an owner or admin there), or that location’s owner, can issue a new code later, which signs the account out everywhere. The person can add an email to take the account over. A managed account can’t own a location, and a location holds at most 20 of them.

6. Language and theme

Settings → Me → Display holds the device’s display choices, applied before the page draws:

• Language: English, العربية, Français, Deutsch or Italiano. Arabic lays the whole app out right to left. The sign-in pages have the same picker.
• Digits in Arabic: Western (0123) or Eastern (٠١٢٣), shown only while the language is Arabic. Short IDs and serial numbers always stay in Western digits.
• Theme: System (follows the device’s light or dark setting), Light or Dark.
• Content width: Centered or Full width, on screens 768 px and wider.

7. Take the tour

Help → Show me around makes nine short stops: Home, Capture, the Inbox, a location’s List / Grid / Map switch, Search, Labels, everything else (More on a phone, the sidebar on a computer), Settings → Notifications, and back to Help. Stops you don’t have are left out: a viewer has no Capture or Inbox, and Labels shows only while its module is on.

• Next moves on, Back goes back, the arrow keys do both, and Esc or × closes it.
• The page still works while it runs: tap anything outside the highlight. Going somewhere the tour didn’t open closes it.
• Closed part-way, Help says where it stopped and offers Resume or Start over. Where you stopped is saved to your account, so another device picks up there too.
• It never starts by itself. If it added anything (a photo taken at Capture, say), you choose at the end to keep it or discard it.

A few one-time hints also appear the first time you use Capture, Scan, the Inbox’s suggested values or Labels.

Keep the keys

Before the first AI key, secret value or backup, Kept waits until the instance admin has saved the recovery kit (Admin → Status asks for it). Without the kit, a backup can’t bring back AI keys or stored passwords on a new server.