Signing In, First Account & Sessions

Circus is an operator's tool, and everything starts with getting into it. Your email address is your username, and access is controlled by a standard email-and-password sign-in.

The first account

Circus is a single-operator application, so the very first time it runs — when no account exists yet — it presents a sign-up flow instead of a login screen. You provide your first name, last name, email, and a password (with confirmation), and the system emails you a confirmation code. Enter a valid code and you're activated and signed straight in; an invalid code shows an error and lets you try again.

Signing in

After that, it's an ordinary sign-in with your email and password. For security, a failed attempt returns a deliberately generic "invalid email or password" — the app won't tell you which field was wrong, so it never confirms whether an email is registered.

Recovering a password

If you forget your password, the recovery flow asks for your email and sends a temporary password by email. As with sign-in, the messaging is intentionally non-revealing: it won't disclose whether the address you entered actually exists in the system. Sign in with the temporary password and then set a new one.

How long your session lasts

By default a session is short-lived — your login cookie lasts about 24 hours. Tick "remember me" at sign-in and that extends to 7 days, so you're not signing in every day on a machine you trust.

After you're in

A successful sign-in lands you on the dashboard, and the main menu opens up the rest of the platform — your entity pages, the configuration registries (models, agents, prompts, services, workflows), cost analytics, and account settings.

Want a second layer of protection on your account? Two-factor authentication and password changes live in Securing Your Account.