Quick Start Guide

Get Brief up and running in just 5 minutes. This guide walks you through account setup, connecting your tools, and asking your first strategic question.

Before You Start

Brief works best when you have at least one of these tools:

• Linear, Jira, or Asana for work tracking
• Notion, Confluence, or Google Drive for documentation
• GitHub for codebase analysis

You can start with just one and add more later—Brief gets smarter as you connect more tools.

Step 1: Create Your Account

1. Go to app.usebrief.com
2. Sign up with Google, GitHub, or email
3. Create your organization (each team gets an isolated workspace)

Step 2: Add Company Information

Tell Brief about your product:

• Company name and website
• Who your customers are (your ICP)
• What you do and your competitive advantages

This gives Brief the foundation to build understanding from.

Step 3: Connect Your First Integration

Start with the tool you use most:

Linear (Recommended)

Linear is great for first-time setup because it gives Brief:

• Velocity data (how fast you ship)
• What's being built right now
• Your work pipeline

1. Click Integrations in the sidebar
2. Find Linear and click Connect
3. Authorize Brief in the OAuth flow
4. You're done! Brief starts syncing immediately

Other Integrations

GitHub — Shows what's actually built vs. what's planned Notion/Confluence/Google Drive — Extracts strategy and product docs Jira/Asana — Alternative work tracking tools Fireflies/Fathom — Captures customer research from calls PostHog — Analytics for understanding user behavior

Step 4: Review Extracted Context

As Brief analyzes your connected tools, you'll see review modals when data is ready. Visit different sections to review and approve:

• Product Context — Company info, goals, and competitive advantages
• Features — Product capabilities Brief found
• Personas — Customer segments Brief identified
• Decisions — Important choices to log

Approve or edit the extracted data. Brief won't overwrite your changes once you approve them.

Step 5: Ask Your First Question

Now try the Brief chat! Use the preset prompts to get started:

Preset Prompts

• 🔭 "I'm new to Brief, show me around" — Guided tour of your context
• 🚏 "What should we build next?" — Prioritized opportunities with evidence
• 👤 "Who are we building for?" — ICP synthesis with customer data
• 📏 "How do we know it's working?" — Measurement plan with baselines
• ⚖️ "What should we stop doing?" — Low-ROI work identification

Try These Questions

• "Do we already have authentication?" (checks your actual codebase)
• "What did we decide about the pricing model?" (searches decision history)
• "What are customers saying about onboarding?" (searches research signals)

Step 6: Connect to Your AI Coding Tools (Optional)

Want Brief to work with Cursor, Windsurf, or VS Code? Set up the Model Context Protocol:

1. Install Brief's MCP server in your AI tool
2. Add your Brief API key (from Settings → API Keys)
3. Now your AI coding agent can query your product context

See Brief MCP Setup Guide for detailed setup.

Next Steps

• Connect More Integrations — More tools = better understanding
• Learn Key Concepts — Understand how Brief learns your product
• Tips for Better Answers — Get better answers from Brief

Troubleshooting

Integration won't connect Make sure you have admin access to the tool you're connecting. Brief needs read permissions to extract context.

Data isn't syncing Initial sync takes 1-5 minutes depending on the tool and your workspace size. Check the Integrations page to see sync status.

Answers seem incomplete Brief provides better answers as you connect more data sources. Start with Linear + GitHub, then add documentation and customer research tools for richer context.

Need more help? Check our Troubleshooting Guide or contact support.