---
title: "Welcome to Gobii"
description: "Learn the Gobii product model: persistent AI employees, templates, channels, files, tools, approvals, teams, and developer surfaces."
sidebar_label: "Welcome"
keywords: ["introduction", "getting started"]
slug: /
---

Gobii helps you create persistent AI employees, called **Gobiis**, that can work over time with instructions, files, tools, apps, channels, schedules, and approval boundaries.

A Gobii is not just a single prompt or one browser task. It has a charter, a timeline, working context, and a workspace. You can chat with it, connect it to email or SMS, give it files, start from a template, approve sensitive actions, and manage multiple Gobiis as a team.

## Start with the product model

- **Use Gobii** when you want an AI employee to keep working on a role, workflow, or ongoing responsibility.
- **Use templates** when you want to start from a proven Gobii instead of writing instructions from scratch.
- **Use channels** when a Gobii should communicate through web chat, email, SMS, approved contacts, or app events.
- **Use tools and apps** when a Gobii needs access to systems, data, MCP servers, connected apps, or custom capabilities.
- **Use approvals** when a Gobii needs a decision, permission, contact access, credentials, or a sensitive change.
- **Use teams and admin controls** when ownership, seats, billing, secrets, contacts, and access need to be managed centrally.

For API and integration docs, the technical term is **agent**. In end-user docs, the primary noun is **Gobii**.

## Choose your path

- New to Gobii? Start with [What Is A Gobii?](/start-here/what-is-gobii) and [Create Your First Gobii](/start-here/create-your-first-gobii).
- Already using Gobii? Go to [Using Gobii](/using-gobii) for chat, planning, templates, tools, files, approvals, and channels.
- Managing a workspace? Go to [Admin and Teams](/admin-and-teams) for organizations, collaborators, global secrets, MCP servers, usage, and billing.
- Building on Gobii? Go to [Developers](/developers) for the Agent API, Remote MCP, webhooks, structured data, and legacy browser task APIs.
- Running your own deployment? Go to [Self-Hosting](/self-hosted).
- Contributing or changing quality systems? Go to [Engineering](/engineering) for evals and contributor-facing quality workflows.

## Common first workflows

### Create a Gobii from a goal

Describe the role you want filled, such as research assistant, sales prep teammate, operations monitor, content coordinator, or customer feedback analyst. Gobii turns that goal into a configured Gobii with a charter, timeline, and settings you can refine.

See [Create Your First Gobii](/start-here/create-your-first-gobii).

### Start from a template

Browse the Template Library, review what a shared Gobii is designed to do, then create your own Gobii from that template.

See [Template Library](/using-gobii/template-library).

### Work in chat and timeline

Use chat for instructions and follow-up. Use the timeline to understand messages, tool activity, files, plans, deliverables, pending requests, and completed work.

See [Chat And Timeline](/using-gobii/chat-and-timeline).

### Connect channels, tools, and files

Connect apps, email, SMS, MCP servers, files, and credentials only where the Gobii needs them. Keep access narrow, use approvals for sensitive changes, and prefer reusable files/workspaces for ongoing workflows.

See [Tools And Apps](/using-gobii/tools-and-apps), [Files And Workspaces](/using-gobii/files-and-workspaces), and [Secrets And Credentials](/using-gobii/secrets-and-credentials).

## Where Gobii runs

- **Gobii Cloud**: use the hosted product at [gobii.ai](https://gobii.ai).
- **Self-hosted Gobii**: run the open-source platform from [GitHub](https://github.com/gobii-ai/gobii-platform) on your own infrastructure.

Get started on Gobii Cloud at [gobii.ai/accounts/signup](https://gobii.ai/accounts/signup/).
