Quickstart

From install to your first answer in under 15 minutes — Escher's onboarding wizard installs the AWS and Azure CLIs for you, walks you through connecting both clouds, and drops you into the app ready to ask questions.

This page documents the exact in-app onboarding flow. You only need three things to get started: a macOS laptop with Terminal access, a Google account (or whichever identity provider your team uses for Escher sign-in), and access to at least one AWS or Azure tenant.

TIP

This guide is verified against the actual app as of May 2026. If the screens differ in your build, ping your Tessell contact or use Edit this page on GitHub (admin mode) to flag the difference.

What the wizard does

Eight screens, in order. You'll click through each one — total time is dominated by waiting for Homebrew and the CLIs to install.

Welcome → click Get started
Sign in (Cognito + Google / your IdP)
Tell us about you — name + role
Install Homebrew — copy/paste one command into Terminal
Choose your cloud — pick AWS, Azure, or both; Escher installs the CLIs
Connect AWS — sign in via SSO (or access keys)
Connect Azure — pick which subscriptions to include
Get Started — drops you into the main app

Step 1 — Open Escher and click Get Started

Launch the app from your Applications folder. You'll see the welcome screen:

Welcome to EscherYour AI agent for cloud operations. Reads your existing cloud profiles and CLI configurations to get to work immediately.
[ Get started ] Already have an account? Sign in

Click Get started. (If you've onboarded before on another machine and have an existing Escher account, click Sign in instead.)

A browser window opens to the Cognito hosted sign-in page. Choose your identity provider (Google in the typical flow) and authenticate. The browser closes and Escher takes you to the next step.

If your team's account isn't provisioned yet, ask your Tessell contact to add your email.

Step 3 — Tell us about you

A short profile screen — Escher uses this to personalize the suggestions you'll see and the logs it generates.

Your name — free-text input
Your role — pick one: Software Engineer · DevOps / SRE · Engineering Manager · Data / ML · Product · Founder / Exec · Other

Click Continue.

Step 4 — Install Homebrew

Escher uses Homebrew to install the AWS and Azure CLIs for you. If you don't already have Homebrew, the wizard will walk you through it:

Open your Terminal — press ⌘+Space, type Terminal, hit return.
Paste and run this command — Escher shows you the official Homebrew install command with a copy icon:
```
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
```
The installer will ask for your macOS password. Takes 2–3 minutes.

When it's done, click I've installed Homebrew.

INFO

If you already have Homebrew, the wizard detects it and skips ahead. If it doesn't detect a fresh install, the screen shows "We couldn't find Homebrew on your device" — complete the Terminal step and click again.

Step 5 — Choose your cloud

Choose your cloudPick the clouds Escher should manage.

Two cards: Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, each with a checkbox and a status badge (Not installed initially).

Tick the clouds you want Escher to manage and click Install & Continue. Escher runs brew install awscli and brew install azure-cli itself — you'll see the live Homebrew output in an embedded panel as each one installs. When each is ready, the status badge turns green and shows the installed version.

TIP

You can add the other provider later from Settings → Profiles.

Step 6 — Connect AWS

Connect AWS · Step AWS · 1 of 2 Sign in with company SSO.

The default flow uses AWS IAM Identity Center (SSO). Escher shows three commands with copy icons:

bash

# 1. Wizard prompts for SSO Start URL, region, and profile name.
aws configure sso

# 2. Opens a browser to complete sign-in.
aws sso login --profile my-sso-profile

# 3. Confirms the SSO session is active.
aws sts get-caller-identity --profile my-sso-profile

Click >_ Open Terminal to launch macOS Terminal. Paste each command in turn. Once the third command returns your AWS identity, click Re-check in Escher — it picks up the profile and unlocks Continue to Azure.

Don't have SSO? Click Change method at the bottom-right of the panel to switch to access-key mode. Two commands then:

bash

# Prompts for Access Key ID, Secret, default region (e.g. us-east-1), and output format.
aws configure --profile dev

# Verify the credentials work.
aws s3 ls --profile dev

Same Re-check flow.

TIP

SSO is the recommended path if your AWS Organization uses IAM Identity Center. It avoids long-lived access keys and inherits any session-length policy your security team has set. See Connect AWS for the full IAM permissions Escher needs in either mode.

To go back to the cloud-picker screen click ← Change cloud.

Step 7 — Connect Azure

If you ticked Azure in Step 5, this screen comes next.

Escher auto-runs az login, which pops a browser window for Microsoft sign-in. Authenticate against your tenant. The wizard then shows Discovering subscriptions... while it enumerates everything you have access to.

You'll then see a subscription picker:

A header card with the connected tenant and the green Azure CLI - <version> indicator
A search box to filter by name, subscription ID, or tenant ID
A Hide disabled subscriptions toggle
The full tree of subscriptions grouped by directory, each as a checkbox row showing the name, subscription ID, and any tags (e.g. DEFAULT)
A footer counter (e.g. "3 selected")
A Select all / Select / Clear visible button to bulk-toggle

Tick the subscriptions you want Escher to include in scans and questions, then click Get Started.

INFO

You can change which subscriptions are active at any time from Settings → Profiles after onboarding — see Switching Profiles.

Step 8 — You're in

Onboarding completes and you land in the main app. The sidebar gives you:

+ New Chat — start a fresh question
Learning Center — in-app guides and tutorials
Reports — scan and analysis reports
Findings — actionable issues Escher has surfaced
Plans — proposed remediations
Bundles — materialised change sets
Recent — your recent activity

From here, click + New Chat and ask Escher a question. Try one of these:

"How many EC2 instances are running without a Name tag?"

"Which S3 buckets allow public read access?"

"What's our top 5 cost line items this month?"

Plain English works — you don't need to learn a query language.

Output format

Most analytical answers come back as a Canvas — a structured document with sections, citations, and (when relevant) recommended actions. Shorter factual questions return inline in chat. See Canvas Overview.

What you can do next

Goal	Where to start
Understand the mental model	How Escher Works
Manage profiles after onboarding	Switching Profiles
Add another cloud later	Add a Cloud Profile
Schedule recurring scans	Scans
Get good at phrasing	Asking Questions
Set up Slack / Jira / Linear / GitHub	Integrations

What's next

How Escher Works — A 5-minute mental model
Asking Questions — Get more out of every prompt
Canvas Overview — When answers come back as a Canvas

Quickstart ​

What the wizard does ​

Step 1 — Open Escher and click Get Started ​

Step 2 — Sign in ​

Step 3 — Tell us about you ​

Step 4 — Install Homebrew ​

Step 5 — Choose your cloud ​

Step 6 — Connect AWS ​

Step 7 — Connect Azure ​

Step 8 — You're in ​

What you can do next ​

What's next ​