Quickstart

Quickstart

This guide takes you from a fresh account to a working voice agent and your first API call.

1. Sign in to your workspace

Telenow accounts are invite‑only — an organization owner creates your account and invites you by email. Open the invitation link, set your password, and you'll land in your organization's dashboard.

Just evaluating? Click Explore demo mode on the login screen for a sandboxed workspace pre‑loaded with sample agents and calls. Demo workspaces are read‑mostly and expire automatically.

Every account belongs to one or more organizations (workspaces). All your agents, numbers, calls, and billing live inside an organization.

2. Build your first agent

From the sidebar, go to Agents → New agent and the builder walks you through:

  1. Identity — name and the system prompt that defines how the agent behaves.
  2. Voice & model — pick a text‑to‑speech voice, a speech‑to‑text provider, and a language model. A live cost‑per‑minute estimate updates as you choose.
  3. First response — an optional greeting the agent speaks when a call connects.
  4. Knowledge & tools — optionally attach a knowledge base so the agent answers from your documents.

Save the agent. See Building agents for the full walkthrough.

3. Try it in the browser

You don't need a phone number to test. Open your agent and use Test call (browser voice) — your mic streams to the agent and you hear it respond in real time. This uses the same web‑call pipeline you can embed on your site or drive over the API.

4. Connect a phone number (optional)

To take real calls, go to Numbers → Search, buy a number, and assign it to your agent. Some countries (e.g. India) require a quick compliance step — Telenow guides you through it. You can also bring your own carrier (Plivo/Twilio) credentials. See Phone numbers.

5. Make your first API call

Programmatic access uses an API key. In the dashboard go to Developers → API keys → New key, give it a name, and copy the secret — it's shown once. The secret looks like:

vai_live_<random>

(You'll need a developer, admin, or owner role to create keys; viewers can see them but not mint or revoke.) API keys are scoped to one organization, so you authenticate with a single header — no separate org header needed.

There are two API surfaces, and your key works on both:

Dashboard API (/api/…) — full CRUD, responses wrapped in a { success, data } envelope:

curl https://api.telenow.ai/api/agents \
  -H "X-API-Key: vai_live_xxx"

{
  "success": true,
  "data": { "agents": [ /* … */ ], "total": 3 }
}

Automation surface (/api/v1/…) — a narrow, stable set of read/chat/webhook endpoints for automation platforms; returns flat JSON (no envelope). A great first call is the connection test:

curl https://api.telenow.ai/api/v1/me \
  -H "X-API-Key: vai_live_xxx"

Use /api/v1 for Zapier/Make/n8n‑style glue and quick scripts; use /api/… when you need full CRUD. See Two API surfaces for the difference and Automation platforms for recipes.

That's it — you have an agent, (optionally) a number, and API access. Next: