Run the setup wizard

After you sign in, les Archives walks you through six steps before it shows you the app. Most of it is quick. One step does almost all the work, and it is not the one people expect.

You can leave at any point with Save & Continue Later. It keeps your answers and puts you back on the same step next launch.

1. About you

Your role, your business name, your city, and how long you have been shooting.

The business name is the one to get right. It goes in as your brand name and it is what shows up on the things you send out, so it is by Trent Bailey rather than Trent Bailey Photography LLC.

Business name and city are both required before you can continue.

2. Power it up

Two optional connections in one step: your own Claude key, and your photos.

Leave the key blank to start on included credits. Everything works either way, and you can add one later. Adding your own Claude key covers the trade.

The photos half is the Dropbox or Google Drive connection. If you connect here you do not have to do it again later. Connect Dropbox or Google Drive is the longer version.

Both are optional and you can continue past this step having done neither.

3. Your brand voice

This is the step that matters. Everything les Archives ever writes for you, captions, alt text, Pinterest descriptions, submission notes, is written against what you put here.

You have to pick at least one voice adjective to move on. The writing samples are optional, and they are also the entire point. Paste two or three real things you have written: a blog opening, your About paragraph, a few recent captions, a welcome email to a couple. The more you paste, the closer the drafts land.

If you added a Claude key in step 2, there is a button that reads your samples and drafts a starting voice profile for you. You can edit all of it.

4. Work scope

Styles you shoot, venue types, regions you serve. At least one style is required.

5. Workflow

Film or digital, average job scale, how often you post. Average scale is required. The posting cadence feeds the content calendar's suggested slots.

6. Your top bar

Pick the filter chips you want across the top of The Archive. Between the minimum and ten of them. Everything you do not pick still exists, it just lives behind More Filters.

You can change these any time in Settings, so do not agonize.

When you are through

les Archives opens properly. The next thing to do is point it at one job, which is Catalog your first job.