# Your first session

Once setup finishes and you have logged in, this page walks through your first session: opening a chat, signing in to a model provider, and sending a message.

1. **Open a chat.** In the [Desktop app](/docs/features/desktop-app/), open the project you want to work in from the project switcher (the project pill in the top-right corner), then use the message input at the bottom of the chat window, the composer.

2. **Sign in to the model provider.** If you have not logged in yet for this project, go to **Settings**, then **LLM providers**, [select the **anthropic** provider, and choose **subscription (oauth)** or **api key**](/docs/features/llm-providers/). For OAuth, click **Open terminal and log in**: Speedwave opens a terminal (iTerm2 if you have it, otherwise Terminal.app, on macOS) and starts the login flow immediately, no interactive prompt to type anything into. It prints an authorization URL, you complete the flow in your browser, then paste the resulting code back into the terminal. Prefer to run it yourself? Copy the command Settings shows instead; if your project uses a non-default data directory, [that command is prefixed with the matching `SPEEDWAVE_DATA_DIR` export](/docs/reference/env-vars/) so it points at the right one. Logging in is per project: log in again for each project you work in. Settings reflects your state as one of three statuses: no provider configured, ready, or auth required.

3. **Send a first message.** Type into the composer and send it. Speedwave runs Claude Code inside the project's container and streams the response back turn after turn, in the same process for the whole conversation. While Claude is responding, you can type your next message and it queues automatically, or press `Esc` to stop the current turn. If you ask Speedwave to build something, expect it to ask clarifying questions and write a spec and a plan before it touches code: the superpowers plugin ships enabled by default, and it's one of the [built-in skills and plugins](/docs/features/built-in-skills-and-plugins/) in every project. See [the default development workflow](/docs/features/default-workflow/) for what each stage looks like.

4. **See where to go next.** Browse the conversations panel (the menu icon at the left of the chat header, or `Cmd+B` / `Ctrl+B`) to revisit past sessions, and read [projects and sessions](/docs/understand/projects-and-sessions/) to understand the workspace you just used.

<DesktopFrame screen="chat" />

[Projects](/docs/understand/projects-and-sessions/)