First start

Create the administrator

When Marginalia starts with an empty database, it asks for the first account instead of showing the login screen. This account is the administrator: it can manage users, database backups, cleanup and extensions.

Fill in:

Field
Username	The login name.
Full Name	The name shown in the application.
Password, Repeat password	Both must match. Marginalia also accepts an empty password - never leave it empty on a server, anyone could then log in as administrator with just the user name.

Administrator is checked and cannot be changed for the first account. Click OK. The page reloads and shows the login screen.

Log in

Log in with the new account. With Save login checked, the browser stays logged in for 30 days. This works only over HTTPS or on 127.0.0.1 with the desktop app (see Server).

The version of Marginalia and the short id of the Git commit it was built from (for example Marginalia 1.5.0 (93ec118)) are shown under the login form.

The workspace

After logging in you see the workspace. The tabs on the left are:

Tab
Books	Your books. Opening one shows its story editor. See Books.
Lorebooks	World and character notes for the prompt. See Lorebooks.
Settings	Your personal settings: default model and protocol for new books, prompt templates, backups. See Account & settings.
Protocols	Generation settings. See Protocols.
Inference Providers	The models Marginalia connects to. See Inference providers.
Resources	The files you uploaded. See Resources.
Trash	What you deleted, until an administrator cleans up. See Trash.

At the bottom are Admin (administrators only), the Language selector, Change Password and Logout (see Administration for the Admin pages).

The same version text, in tiny letters, is in the bottom left corner of the page; hover over it for the full commit id and the time of the commit and of the build. Say it when you report a problem. A build run from a development checkout (mvn jetty:run) shows dev instead of the version.

Marginalia remembers where you were. The next time you log in (on any device) it opens the same tab, with the same filters of the book list, the same lorebook and open lorebook entries and, if you left a book open, that book on the same tab - with the scene, POV character, present characters and instructions you had typed for the next part. What no longer exists (a deleted book, lorebook or tag) is skipped; a book that was deleted is not opened.

Continue with the quick start.