# Getting Started Welcome to CoreReflex — a governed, self-hosted **AI creative studio**. It makes, masters, and ships creative of every kind: video (the flagship), audio and music, image and design, decks and diagrams, written content, and the agency layer that sells the work. The deepest path is video, so that's where this guide starts — you describe a film in a sentence; an agentic director boards it, produces every shot, then critiques and assembles the cut. From there you voice it, score it, master each clip, color it, edit it on a real timeline, write the script, clone a persona, cut it into vertical shorts, and publish it to your social channels — all in one studio, on your own infrastructure. This guide takes you from "I just heard about CoreReflex" to "I'm directing my first film," and points you at the right page for everything else. **On this page** - [Create your account](#create-your-account) - [Manage your account in Settings](#manage-your-account-in-settings) - [The dashboard and the studio are one tool](#the-dashboard-and-the-studio-are-one-tool) - [A tour of the dashboard](#a-tour-of-the-dashboard) - [Your team: invites and roles](#your-team-invites-and-roles) - [Connections: is everything up?](#connections-is-everything-up) - [Make it yours: themes and brand colors](#make-it-yours-themes-and-brand-colors) - [The chat assistant](#the-chat-assistant) - [Start your first film](#start-your-first-film) - [What you can do](#what-you-can-do) - [Pro features and billing](#pro-features-and-billing) - [Where to next](#where-to-next) --- ## Create your account Everything starts at your dashboard on **[corereflex.com](https://corereflex.com)**. 1. Open the dashboard. If you're not signed in, you'll land on the sign-in screen. 2. Switch to the **Create account** tab. You'll be asked for: - **Your name** — how the studio greets you. - **Studio / workspace** — the name of your workspace. Everything you create — films, assets, contacts, calendars — lives inside this workspace, scoped to your team. - **Email** and a **password** (at least 12 characters). 3. Submit, and you're in. Creating an account spins up your account, your workspace, and your first user — as the **owner** — in one atomic step. No separate setup. You're **free to start**. The platform runs on a free tier out of the box; some capabilities are reserved for Pro (see [Plans and billing](plans-and-billing.md)). ### Signing in again Coming back? Use the **Sign in** tab with your email and password. Your session is kept in a secure, HTTP-only cookie that's good for 12 hours, so you stay signed in across the dashboard and the studio without re-entering anything. Use **Sign out** in the top bar when you're done on a shared machine. > **Heads up on your password.** CoreReflex stores passwords using a strong one-way hash (scrypt) — we never keep your plain password and can't email it back to you. Pick something memorable and at least 12 characters. ### Forgot your password? If you can't get in, click **Forgot password?** on the sign-in screen. 1. Enter your email and hit **Send reset link**. For your privacy, you'll always see the same "Check your email" confirmation — whether or not an account exists for that address — so no one can use the form to fish for who has an account. 2. If an account does exist, a reset link lands in your inbox. **The link expires in 30 minutes** and works only once. 3. Click it, choose a new password (at least 12 characters), and you're done — sign in with the new one. For security, requesting a reset and finishing one both **sign you out everywhere** on that account, so a stolen session can't outlive a password change. > **A note for self-hosted operators.** Password-reset emails are delivered through an email provider you configure (Resend, SendGrid, Postmark, or SMTP). Until a provider is wired up, reset links are written to the server log rather than emailed, so the flow degrades safely instead of leaking a token. See the developer docs for setup. --- ## Manage your account in Settings Click **Settings** in the dashboard top bar to manage your own account: - **Profile.** Update your display name — the name the studio greets you with — and **Save profile**. - **Password.** Change your password without leaving the dashboard. Enter your **current** password, pick a **new** one (at least 12 characters, and different from the current one), and **Change password**. As a safety measure, changing your password here **signs out every other session** but keeps the one you're using, so you don't get bounced out of the tab you're working in. Use the **← Dashboard** button to return to your hub, or **Sign out** to end your session. --- ## The dashboard and the studio are one tool There are two surfaces, but they're a single product: - **The dashboard** ([corereflex.com](https://corereflex.com)) is your **home**. It welcomes you back, and its top navigation groups everything you own: **Home**, **Create** (workflows, projects, files, recent work), **Distribute** (publishing, analytics, client ops), and **Account** (plan, team, connections). Several workflows — Persona, Script, Render, and Shorts — run as **self-contained studios right inside the dashboard**, no editor trip required. - **The studio** ([editor.corereflex.com](https://editor.corereflex.com)) is the **editor** — the timeline, the canvas, and every creative tool, organized into eight modes (Video, Audio, Image, Brand, Slides, Diagram, Write, and Workflow). The dashboard doesn't just link to the studio; it opens the studio **already primed for what you want to do**. Click **Open Studio** in the top bar and you enter the editor. Click a specific workflow card — say *Direct a film* — and the studio opens on the director's front door for a brand-new project. Click *Design an image* and it opens straight into Image Studio. You never have to hunt for the right panel: the dashboard sends you straight to it. Your sign-in carries across both surfaces automatically, so moving between the dashboard and the studio never asks you to log in twice. --- ## A tour of the dashboard The top bar has the navigation on the left and your quick actions on the right: your **workspace name and email**, **Open Studio →**, **Tour** (replays the first-run walkthrough any time), **Settings**, and **Sign out**. The navigation is grouped into four sections. Click a group name (**Create**, **Distribute**, **Account**) to open its menu, then pick a view. Each view is a full page inside the dashboard. ### Home Your landing view. It greets you by name, offers the big **Start a new film with a sentence** card, and lays out **"What do you want to make?"** — one-click cards into the most-used studios: Direct a film, Write content, Run a workflow, Design an image, Build a brand kit, Build a deck, and Proof & approve. On your very first visit, a **First run** card suggests a first move (direct a film, write a script, or take the tour) — hide it once the studio feels familiar. ### Create Everything you make, and everywhere you make it. - **Workflows** — the full pipeline as cards: every studio and workflow, one click away (see [the full map below](#what-you-can-do)). This view also hosts your **Autopilot recipes** (programmable, multi-step pipelines with budgets and human approvals — run once or on a schedule) and **Proofing & approvals** (share a deliverable on a private link; your client comments and approves or requests changes — see [Proofing and approvals](proofing-and-approvals.md)). - **Projects** — your saved compositions and campaigns. - **Files** — the single repository for **everything your workspace owns**: every upload and every generated artifact. Search by filename **or describe the content in plain English** (semantic search — try "sunset drone shot over water"). Filter by type (All / Video / Image / Audio / Docs) or by **collection** — your own folders. On any file you can **add it to a collection** (or create a new collection on the spot), **download** it, or **delete** it (a two-tap confirm, no pop-up dialog). Files that carry a signed **provenance badge** can be verified with one click — the badge tells you honestly whether the file is AI-generated and whether its bytes are unchanged since signing. - **Recent work** — your generation feed: the newest films and stills you've made, with the same plain-English semantic search on top. Play them, download your own, and jump back into the studio from here. ### Distribute Getting finished work out the door. - **Publishing** — push finished renders to your social platforms. Connect a **GoHighLevel** account once (API key + Location ID; the key is encrypted at rest and never shown again) and CoreReflex can reach **Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Google Business, and TikTok** through it. Pick a render, choose platforms, and **publish now or schedule** — every post's status (draft, scheduled, published, failed) is tracked in the same view. Disconnect any time. - **Analytics** — your traffic and conversion numbers for the last 30 days: **page views, sign-ups, CTA clicks, and sign-ins**, an events-per-day chart, a by-event breakdown, and your top pages. Scoped to your workspace. Hit **Refresh** to re-pull. - **Client ops** — the white-label client suite: CRM, tasks, booking, and automations (Pro). See [Client operations](client-operations.md). This menu item appears once your plan includes it. ### Account Your workspace's plumbing. - **Plan** — your current tier, credits, and (when billing is enabled) upgrade and subscription management. See [Plans and billing](plans-and-billing.md). - **Team** — who's in your workspace, their roles, and the invite form. Covered in detail [below](#your-team-invites-and-roles). - **Connections** — the live status board for every service behind the platform. Covered in detail [below](#connections-is-everything-up). --- ## Your team: invites and roles CoreReflex workspaces are multi-user. Open **Account → Team** to see everyone, with their name, email, role, and what that role can do. ### The four roles | Role | What it can do | |------|----------------| | **Owner** | Full workspace control, billing, member management, approvals, and exports. | | **Producer** | Create, edit, render, export, and comment on campaign work. | | **Reviewer** | Review, comment, and approve campaign work. | | **Client** | Comment-only access for client review flows. | ### Inviting a teammate Only **owners** manage members — everyone else sees the member list read-only. 1. Open **Account → Team**. 2. In the invite form at the bottom, type your teammate's **email**, pick a **role** (producer is the default), and click **Invite**. 3. If they already have a CoreReflex account, they're added to your workspace immediately and appear in the list. 4. If they **don't** have an account yet, you'll see a message asking them to sign up first — have them create their account at [corereflex.com](https://corereflex.com), then invite the same email again. ### Changing roles and removing members As an owner, each member row has a **role dropdown** — pick a new role and it saves immediately — and a **Remove** button, which asks you to confirm before removing that person from the workspace. Two guardrails keep you from locking yourself out: - A workspace must always keep **at least one owner** — you can't demote or remove the last one. - Removing or demoting an owner requires another owner to already exist. --- ## Connections: is everything up? Open **Account → Connections** for a live, read-only health board of every service the platform runs on — the AI generation services it orchestrates (director, video, voice, music, image, semantic search), the creative engines (4K upscale, background removal, vectorize, audio mastering), and the infrastructure underneath (file storage, database, the render worker that bakes your 4K exports, and Stripe billing). Each row shows a colored status: | Status | Meaning | |--------|---------| | **Connected** | Live and reachable. | | **Configured** | Wired up, but not the active default (or running in a test mode). | | **Pending** | Not set up yet on this deployment. | | **Degraded** | Set up, but its health check is currently failing. | | **Off** | Not available. | The summary in the corner ("12/17 live") gives you the one-glance answer. If a feature seems unresponsive, check here first — a **Degraded** database or storage row explains a lot, fast. (Note: your social **publishing** account is connected on the Publishing view, not here — Connections reports platform services, not your personal integrations.) --- ## Make it yours: themes and brand colors CoreReflex ships with a built-in theme switcher, so the whole product can wear your look. 1. On any CoreReflex page — the site, the dashboard, anywhere — find the small **paint-palette button** floating in the **bottom-left corner**. 2. Click it. The **Theme** panel opens with three presets: **Cobalt Trust** (the default blue), **Quantum Teal**, and **Indigo Signal**. Click one and the entire interface re-colors instantly. 3. Below the presets, **Brand colors** gives you five pickers to go fully custom: **Canvas** (the background), **Primary** (the main accent), **Secondary**, **Text**, and **Risk** (warnings and destructive actions). Changes apply live as you pick. 4. **Reset custom** clears your custom colors back to the active preset. Picking a different preset also starts you clean — a preset is a complete look, and custom colors layer on top of it. 5. Click anywhere outside the panel (or press **Escape**) to close it. Your choice is saved **on that device, per browser** — and it follows you across the whole product: the marketing site, the dashboard, **and the editor at editor.corereflex.com** all pick up the same theme automatically, with no flash of the wrong colors on load. --- ## The chat assistant The **chat bubble in the bottom-right corner** — on the CoreReflex site (home, pricing, docs, blog, booking) and on your dashboard — is a built-in assistant that answers questions about the product. - **Ask anything.** Type a question (or tap one of the suggested questions) and the answer streams in live. Answers are **grounded**: when the assistant draws on documentation or product pages, it shows **source chips** under the reply that you can click to read the original. - **Your conversation persists.** Close the panel and come back later — your chat history on that device is still there. - **Talk to a human.** Click **Talk to a human**, fill in your **email**, **name**, and **what you need help with**, then either: - **Request human** — flags the conversation for a live person; keep typing in the same thread, and their replies appear right in the widget; or - **Create ticket** — files a support ticket from your message so the team can follow up by email. When a support conversation is resolved, the widget tells you and hands you back to the assistant. --- ## Start your first film Video is the flagship and the richest way to see the whole studio in action, so it's where to begin. From a cold start to a boarded, produced, assembled film: 1. On the dashboard, find the big **Start a new film with a sentence** card (or the **Direct a film** workflow). 2. Click **Direct a new film →**. The studio opens on the **agentic director** front door, set up for a fresh project. 3. **Describe your concept in one sentence.** A premise, a mood, a product, a story — whatever you're making. 4. The **director boards it**: it plans a continuity-linked, multi-shot sequence (so characters, locations, and look stay consistent from shot to shot), and **produces every shot in native 4K**. 5. The agentic Director then runs its **produce → critique → assemble** loop — generating shots, reviewing them, and cutting them together — and tiles the result onto the timeline, ready to arrange, trim, narrate, score, and grade. You can direct in **Easy** mode (describe it and let the director run) or **Advanced** mode (more hands-on control over the shot plan). The dashboard's *Direct a film* card opens Easy; *Produce shots* opens Advanced. Your finished and in-progress films show up under **Create → Recent work** on the dashboard, where you can play them and download your own — and under **Create → Files**, alongside everything else you make. --- ## What you can do CoreReflex is a full pipeline. Each workflow below has its own dashboard card or view. Some open the editor primed for the task; others run **right inside the dashboard**. Here's the map, with where to read more: | Workflow | What it does | Where it runs | Learn more | |----------|--------------|---------------|------------| | **Direct** | Describe a concept; the agentic director boards a continuity-linked, native-4K shot plan. | Editor | [Directing a film](directing-films.md) | | **Produce** | Generate every shot, frame-chained for seamless cuts, then critique and assemble. | Editor | [Directing a film](directing-films.md) | | **Voice** | Narrate your script with studio-quality AI voices, dropped onto the audio track. | Editor | [Voice and audio](voiceover-and-music.md) | | **Score** | Compose original music from a prompt and mood — auto-ducked under your voice. | Editor | [Voice and audio](voiceover-and-music.md) | | **Record** | Capture your screen, webcam, mic, and system audio right in the browser, onto the timeline. | Editor | [Recording](recording-and-podcasts.md) | | **Voice agent** | Talk to a real-time AI voice agent for booking, lead capture, sales, and support. | Dashboard / `/voice` | [Recording](recording-and-podcasts.md#the-real-time-voice-agent) | | **Edit** | Arrange the timeline on a timecode or musical grid, color-grade with a project-wide cinematic look, add dissolves/dips/wipes, and master the audio on every clip. | Editor | [Editing and mastering](editing-and-mastering.md) | | **Script** | The native **Script Studio** drafts in a natural, spoken voice — write from a brief or rewrite any line. | Dashboard | [Editing and mastering](editing-and-mastering.md) | | **Write** | Templated copywriting — blog, email, landing pages, ads — in your brand voice; hand off to Script, Slides, or a document. | Editor (Write mode) | [Writing and content](writing-and-content.md) | | **Persona** | Build a **consented** video clone — likeness and voice — that speaks any script (Pro). | Dashboard | [Editing and mastering](editing-and-mastering.md) | | **Shorts** | Reframe a finished film into a 9:16 or 1:1 vertical short, captions carried over. | Dashboard | [Editing and mastering](editing-and-mastering.md#shorts-studio) | | **Auto-Clips** | Turn one long video into ranked, captioned vertical shorts, rendered straight to your library. | Its own dashboard page | [Below](#auto-clips-long-video--vertical-shorts) | | **Render & ship** | Render a true 4K master from your timeline on the platform's own render fleet. | Dashboard | [Editing and mastering](editing-and-mastering.md) | | **Meeting briefs** | Turn any recording transcript into an AI summary with action items, decisions, and chapters. | Editor | [Meeting briefs](meetings-and-briefs.md) | | **Workflows / Autopilot** | Programmable, multi-step pipelines (images, copy, video) with budgets and human approvals — run once or schedule. | Editor (Workflow mode) + dashboard cockpit | [Dashboard tour](#create) | | **Files** | One searchable repository for every upload and generation, with collections and provenance badges. | Dashboard | [Dashboard tour](#create) | | **Publishing** | Push finished renders to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Google Business, and TikTok — now or on a schedule. | Dashboard | [Dashboard tour](#distribute) | | **Analytics** | Page views, sign-ups, CTA clicks, and sign-ins for your workspace over the last 30 days. | Dashboard | [Dashboard tour](#distribute) | | **Proofing** | Share a deliverable on a private link; clients comment and approve or request changes (Pro). | Dashboard | [Proofing and approvals](proofing-and-approvals.md) | | **Client ops** | Run native CRM, tasks, booking, and automations for your clients (Pro). | Dashboard | [Client operations](client-operations.md) | Everything above is live today — including the export pipeline: the **Render Studio** queues your timeline on the platform's self-hosted render worker and bakes it into a true-4K MP4, straight into your library. ### The eight studio modes The editor is one workspace with **eight modes**, switched from the segmented toggle in the studio bar at the top (or opened directly from a dashboard card). They all share the same project and file store, so work moves between them without exporting and re-importing: 1. **Video** — the flagship timeline editor: shots, keyframes, transitions, grading, captions, markers, and mastering. 2. **Audio** — multitrack audio sessions: arrange, mix, and bounce sound on its own dedicated surface. 3. **Image** — a Canva-style design canvas: generate, layer, and lay out stills, then place them onto the timeline. 4. **Brand** — build brand kits (logo, palette, type, and voice) and promote one to the workspace so every generated asset stays on-brand. 5. **Slides** — a deck builder on the shared canvas: export to PDF or video, or build a deck from a Write document in a click. 6. **Diagram** — a whiteboard for diagrams, flows, and visual thinking. 7. **Write** — templated copywriting documents in your brand voice. 8. **Workflow** — the production cockpit for programmable pipelines: configure a recipe, run it, and watch it execute. ### Auto-Clips: long video → vertical shorts Auto-Clips is its own page on the dashboard (the **Auto-Clips** card, or **corereflex.com/auto-clips**). It turns one long video into a set of ranked, captioned shorts in four steps: 1. **Source & options.** Pick a video from your library or paste a public video URL. Choose how many clips you want, their minimum and maximum length, the aspect ratio (9:16, 1:1, or 16:9), the kind of moments to hunt for (general or gaming), a **caption style** (nine styles from Minimal to Dramatic to GenZ, or Auto to match each moment), and optionally a **voiceover** and **story mode** (one narrative arc across all the clips). Long sources are automatically prepared into a small analysis file first. 2. **Review highlights.** The AI finds and ranks the most engaging moments. Check the ones you want and click **Generate selected shorts**. 3. **Your shorts.** Each selected highlight is cut, reframed to vertical, captioned, and rendered — straight into your library. 4. **Distribute to socials.** If you've connected your publishing account, schedule the finished shorts to your platforms right from the same page, staggered by whatever cadence you choose — or publish immediately. --- ## Pro features and billing A subset of CoreReflex is reserved for the Pro plan and is off by default: the **client-operations layer** (CRM, tasks, booking, and automations), **proofing & approvals**, and **personas** (consented video clones). The free tier covers directing, producing, voicing, scoring, recording, editing, scripting, writing, shorts, and meeting briefs. Plans at a glance: - **Free** — watermarked exports, up to 5 exports a month, no credits. - **Pro** — clean exports, the client-ops suite, personas, more exports, and included generation credits. - **Enterprise** — everything in Pro, plus private mode and governance. Billing is off until your operator turns it on, so the free product is unchanged out of the box. When billing is enabled, you can **Upgrade to Pro** straight from **Account → Plan** on your dashboard, and **Manage subscription** opens the Stripe billing portal to change card, plan, or cancel. To compare tiers and credits in detail, see [Plans and billing](plans-and-billing.md). --- ## Where to next - New to directing? Start with **[Directing a film](directing-films.md)**. - Want to add narration or a soundtrack? See **[Voice and audio](voiceover-and-music.md)**. - Ready to finish and export? See **[Editing and mastering](editing-and-mastering.md)**. - Writing copy or building content? See **[Writing and content](writing-and-content.md)**. - Running client work? See **[Client operations](client-operations.md)**, **[Proofing and approvals](proofing-and-approvals.md)**, and **[Plans and billing](plans-and-billing.md)**. - Curious what's still on the runway? See **[Coming soon](coming-soon.md)**. Your studio is waiting. Open it, type one sentence, and watch it become a film.