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Sign in, install the GitHub App, and connect a repository. Orbi then reads it and suggests a first task for you to choose. You can also write a request or dispatch an existing Issue. This is the shortest complete path. Every step ends with a Success check so you can tell whether to continue or to stop and fix something. The whole path happens in a browser and in GitHub. You never get a shell on the runner, and you never install anything locally. Before you start you need a GitHub account and a repository you can install a GitHub App on (you must be its owner, or an organization owner/admin). The repository must have Issues enabled. Orbi reads and labels Issues, so a repository with Issues turned off cannot be connected.
You do not need a big or important repository to try it. Installing on a single small repository is enough to see the whole loop, and you can add others later.

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The page that guides you

The status page’s setup checklist has five steps: sign in, install the App, connect a repository, prepare the environment and hand over the first request. The fifth step finishes when the request is handed off, without waiting for a merge. Installation, connection and the first request have how-to videos. Release creation and subscription are separate from setup.

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1. Sign in with GitHub

Open orbi.build/api/ and click Sign in with GitHub. GitHub asks you to authorize Orbi Cloud. This step only establishes who you are; it does not give Orbi access to any repository yet.
The page opens in Chinese if your browser prefers Chinese. Switch with 🇨🇳 ZH | 🇺🇸 EN in the top right of the sign-in page, or later from the account menu (your avatar, top right). The choice is remembered for a year.
Success: you are signed in, with your GitHub avatar and login in the top right. If you have not installed the App yet, the page you land on is titled Connect repository and says The Orbi GitHub App is not installed yet. Otherwise it is the status page; the browser tab reads Orbi Cloud Status.

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2. Install the Orbi GitHub App

If you already completed the App installation on GitHub and returned to Orbi, skip ahead to step 3. Seeing the installation form without completing it is not enough. Otherwise click Install the Orbi GitHub App on the page you landed on, and you are sent to GitHub. On GitHub’s installation screen, choose the account or organization that owns your repository, select Only select repositories, tick the repository you want Orbi to work in, and click Install. The App needs write access to Issues, pull requests and repository contents to do its job: it labels Issues, opens pull requests and pushes the branch it works on. Install the GitHub App explains every permission, and you can revoke the installation from GitHub at any time. Success: GitHub returns you to Orbi. On first setup, if you authorized exactly one eligible repository, Orbi connects it on its default branch and opens the status page. With several repositories, you see Connect repository. If Confirming the GitHub App installation appears first, let it refresh; after a minute, use Select repository.

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3. Connect the repository

Already connected and on the status page? Skip to step 4. If the selection form appears, follow the steps below. Pick your repository from the Repository list (with more than 8 repositories, a Search repositories box appears above it; type part of the name to filter). Then check Base branch, the branch Orbi opens its pull requests against. Selecting a repository loads its real branches and preselects the default one, so usually you just confirm. Click Connect repository.
A repository marked (Issues disabled; enable them first) has to have Issues enabled first, under the repository’s Settings → Features. If your repository is missing from the list entirely, open Don’t see your repository? for the link to add it to the App installation.
Success: connecting opens that project’s status page, where Orbi starts preparing the work environment.

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4. Wait for the work environment

After you connect a repository, Orbi builds an isolated work environment for it and installs the delivery labels into the repository. This usually takes 10–20 seconds, and the page updates itself. You do not have to reload or do anything. Success: Prepare work environment is marked ✓ Done. Orbi then says it is reading the repository to pick things it can do right away, and shows recently read files. Suggestions usually take about 2 minutes; you can leave the page. Environment preparation and reading for suggestions are separate steps. If preparation fails instead, the status page says so in the main status card, and View failure reasons and repair steps shows the reason and what to do. Most failures are platform-side and recover on their own. See provisioning.

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5. Give Orbi its first task

When suggestions are ready, the main card says Orbi has read your repository and suggests starting with this. and shows one task:
  • New task: click Review draft to read the draft already prepared for you. Tell Orbi what to change if needed, then click Hand off to Orbi. Opening the draft does not create an Issue; handing it off does.
  • Existing Issue: click Let Orbi do this to apply ai-ready and dispatch it immediately.
  • Your own task: use Write a request, New Issue on GitHub (starts right away)↗, or Pick an existing Issue (N) on the same card.
See N more suggestions lists the other suggestions, with Show others at the end for a new batch. With no suggestions, use Get suggestions. You can write your own request at any point.
The ai-ready label is what starts the work. Hand off to Orbi and Let Orbi do this add it for you; if you write the Issue yourself on GitHub, add it yourself. An Issue without it is never picked up, however long it waits.
With the environment ready and quota available, a task normally starts within about a minute; queued work and version scope can make it wait. The regular pickup runs every five minutes. Success: within a few minutes the label ai-in-progress appears on the Issue, the headline becomes Orbi is coding and shows the active Issue and its progress, and the task appears in Task history. From here Orbi writes the code, opens a pull request, checks it in a separate session and repairs what the check finds. The Issue reaches ai-merged once the checked commit is merged.

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Try the official example

On the connect page, use the link to create a repository from Orbi’s official example, then authorize and connect that copy. Every plan can connect one verified example copy alongside its real projects. Example deliveries do not use your three free deliveries, and the copy does not use a repository slot. The example offers three ready-made tasks: add a Clear completed button, show how many items remain, or keep the list after a refresh. Picking one creates and dispatches an Issue immediately. After it merges, follow Open your page ↗ when a preview is available, or expand Run your own latest copy and follow the commands for your copy. Merging code does not update files you previously downloaded or a page you are already running locally. View the Issue, PR and check results shows the delivery evidence. Use Connect your own project to move on to your repository. A normal repository does not receive the example exemption merely because it has a similar name.

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While it runs

You do not have to wait silently. If you realise the Issue was missing something, comment on the Issue. The running session picks the correction up, usually within a minute. See steering a delivery.

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What to do next

  • Hand Orbi the next task. Queued tasks appear in Task history with the status Queued.
  • When enough merged work has piled up to be worth a version, see releases. Releasing is optional and is not a setup step.
  • To understand each label and what moves between them, read the delivery lifecycle.
  • If the Issue reaches ai-blocked, read troubleshooting. That state is waiting on a decision from you.
  • Nothing happened after five minutes? Start at troubleshooting.