Set up Underway

Choose your assistant and plan

Your task in Underway “Set up your assistant”

Your Underway tasks are worked by your own AI assistant: Claude or ChatGPT, whichever you already use.

1. Check you’re on a paid plan. The entry plan is enough: Pro on Claude, Plus on ChatGPT. Underway needs your assistant to connect to tools and run on a schedule, and both are paid features.
2. Tell Underway which one you use. Once you’re in, open the profile menu at the top right and pick it under Preferred assistant. That decides where a task opens when you want to work it in a chat.
3. Install the desktop app, if you can. It’s optional, but it lets your assistant work in a browser with you there, which is a big step up in what it can take on. Download Claude or ChatGPT, and sign in with the same account.

Not sure which to pick? It doesn’t lock you in. Your tasks live in Underway, so switching later changes where a chat opens and nothing else.

You’re done when your assistant is on a paid plan and set as your Preferred assistant.

Connect Underway to your assistant

Your task in Underway “Let your assistant talk to Underway”

A connector is how an assistant reaches another service. Adding Underway as one lets your assistant see your tasks, work them, and write back what it did.

1. Paste the URL into a new chat and ask your assistant to add Underway as a connector and sign in. It knows where today’s settings are; you do the clicking. If you’re asked for OAuth client details, leave them empty.
2. Let it act without asking. In your assistant’s settings for Underway, allow its tools to run without asking each time. Otherwise every step waits on a click, and a scheduled run, with nobody there, never finishes.
3. Make sure it’s connected, not just added. On some apps connecting is a separate click after adding. Miss it and the setup looks finished but isn’t.

You’re done when you ask your assistant “what tasks do I have in Underway?” and it lists them.

Introduce yourself

Your task in Underway “Tell Underway about you and your projects”

A fifteen-minute interview with your assistant, one question at a time. What it learns is used to prepare every task you add from then on.

Open the interview task in Underway and choose Work this more in …, or just ask your assistant to run Underway’s setup interview. It writes two things as you go, reading each back so you can catch a wrong guess:

• ✓Guess out loud. “I think it’s on AWS” is more useful than skipping the question.
• ✓Say what you don’t have. Knowing there’s no shared drive saves a task from looking for one.
• ✓The tools matter most. You’ll be offered options to pick from, so it goes quickly.

None of it is final. Change your profile under Manage profile in the profile menu, your projects on the Projects tab, or ask your assistant to do either.

You’re done when your profile and two or three projects are saved.

Put your assistant on a schedule

Your task in Underway “Schedule your assistant to work your tasks”

This is the step that makes the work happen without you. Claude and ChatGPT can both run a prompt on a timer, called a scheduled task. One of them, running every hour, works all your Underway tasks.

1. Copy the run prompt with Copy run prompt in Underway’s profile menu. Use it word for word. Or open the scheduling task in Underway, choose Work this more in …, and your assistant sets it up with you.
2. Create a scheduled task with it, running hourly. On Claude, choose the Haiku model if you’re offered one: the run only checks your tasks and hands each to a stronger model, so a small one is enough and uses far less of your plan.
3. Make sure nothing waits on approval. Underway, and every tool the work uses, needs to run without asking. Nobody is there to click.
4. Run it once now rather than waiting for the first hour to come round.

Runs only pick up tasks in For your assistant. Its heading shows the last run, and turns red after two days without one.

On Claude, a run keeps checking for new work for most of the hour, so an answer you give is picked up within minutes. Recheck every in the profile menu sets how often. On ChatGPT, a run works one batch and ends, so an answer waits for the next hour.

You’re done when the scheduled task is saved and has run once.

Try it on something real

Your task in Underway “Capture your first task and watch it get worked”

Add something small and watch it go all the way round. Pick something the public web can answer, so it doesn’t need your inbox or a login yet.

• Plan easy dinners for the next week and make a shopping list
• Narrow noise-canceling headphones down to two I could buy
• Find three well-reviewed beginner books on personal finance

Type it into the box at the top of your tasks and add it. Within a minute it’s prepared and moves to For your assistant; the next run works it and hands back the result in Review. Read it there, then mark it done, or add a note asking for more and press Keep working.

No scheduled task yet? Open the task and choose Work this more in … to work it with your assistant in a chat.

You’re done when your task reaches Review and you’ve given it your verdict.