--- name: candor-getting-started description: Set up Candor for personal finance so the user's agent can organize accounts and spending, remember budgets and goals, review investments, and follow through. Use when installing Candor, approving account access, connecting financial accounts, installing finance skills, or opening Candor for the first time. --- # Start Candor onboarding Act as the user's agent. Set up and use Candor as the financial memory you operate on their behalf; do not merely summarize these instructions or hand the process back to the user. The user owns their information, approves financial intent, and can revoke access. Handle the setup work yourself. Name the real consent moments—Candor account access, financial-account connection, choosing a subscription, and choices such as budgets or goals—then stay out of the user's way during routine work. During setup the order is Candor account access, choosing a subscription, then connecting a financial account. Be explicit during consent and invisible during work. ## Choose the supported package for this agent Always inspect this live bootstrap manifest first: https://api.candor.money/agents/candor/bootstrap.json Identify the current agent and how it can connect. Follow only the lowest-priority matching route whose `availability` is `available`. Prefer a plugin, marketplace package, extension, or bundle made for the current agent. Compare its installed version with `package.version` in the manifest. Reuse the loaded package only when the versions match exactly. If it is missing, stale, or the installed version cannot be observed, run the selected route's exact `install.commands` or `update.commands` as appropriate. For a CLI route, compare `candor version --json` with `package.cli_version`; its installer is also its update path. Request the agent's ordinary installation confirmation, perform every other installation or update step yourself, then start or reload the session when the route requires it. Read this start skill again in the new session. Verify that the matching version of the `candor-finance` skill and the selected Candor MCP tools or CLI are both loaded before continuing. Never connect the remote MCP server without the matching `candor-finance` skill. Never invent a package source or use a route marked `directory_review` or otherwise unavailable. If no available route matches, say that Candor has not published a supported package for this agent yet. Do not send the user to a separate platform setup guide or claim to install, connect, or open a workspace you cannot reach. ## Use the CLI only when selected The setup manifest selects the CLI only for an agent that already operates through a local shell and can complete the installation itself. Do not choose it merely because a shell exists, and do not hand its commands to the user. Run the manifest's exact install commands, then continue below. The CLI installer installs or updates the public `candor` executable. A route whose `skill_delivery` is `native_package` already carries the skill; a route whose `skill_delivery` is `managed_cli` downloads the skill after the user signs in and activates a subscription. ## Authorize Candor For a route whose `operation_surface` is `remote_mcp`, call `candor_open({})`. Let the agent handle the MCP OAuth challenge and its secure browser page. Follow the returned recovery action exactly if the flow pauses. Installing the package and registering its OAuth client do not create a Candor account. For a new user, say that before the browser opens. The secure page asks which email should own the workspace; its passwordless email link signs the user in or creates the account, then returns to permission approval. An existing signed-in browser session skips only that identity step. Do not imply that installing the package or registering its OAuth client created a Candor account, and do not ask for the email in chat just to prefill the page. If you already have one reliable email for the user, add it as the URL-encoded standard `login_hint` parameter on the initial Candor OAuth authorization URL before opening it. This is an editable convenience hint, not identity proof; the user still presses Continue and verifies the email. If the email is absent or ambiguous, omit `login_hint` and open the page with its email field blank. Never add or change parameters on a signed `app.candor.money` continuation URL. For a route whose `operation_surface` is `cli`, run: ```bash candor setup ``` Open one system-browser session. It sequences sign-in, explicit OAuth approval for this CLI, Candor account setup, and an explicit account-connection button. Subscription and payment details stay on secure Candor pages; do not quote, infer, or administer them in chat. The financial account provider must never auto-open. Tell the user that these are separate consent moments in one session and why each is needed. Never ask for credentials, verification codes, account numbers, access tokens, or private URLs in chat. Wait while the user completes or leaves that session. When they return, replay the exact resume action Candor emits. Do not guess a resume command or checkpoint. ## Finish access and verify the installation Continue through account access and the Candor subscription step before financial-account connection. Do not request or inspect financial data while access is inactive. Once the user explicitly connects a financial account and Candor reports full access, verify that the installed package still exposes `candor-finance` and that the selected MCP tools or CLI work. A missing skill, MCP tool, or CLI is an incomplete installation, not a reason to use a different connection method silently. For a route whose `skill_delivery` is `managed_cli`, download the finance skills through the signed-in session. A `native_package` route must not install a second copy. Candor verifies the package before updating files under the standard shared agent directory `~/.agents/skills` (or the explicitly configured `CANDOR_SKILLS_DIR`): ```bash candor skill install ``` Do not try to download the skill files from public discovery URLs. If Candor returns an authorization, subscription, or recovery action, complete that action and retry the same command. At the beginning of later CLI sessions, `candor open` verifies the managed release and returns an exact install or update action before opening the workspace when the skills are missing or stale. Never overwrite a locally modified skill; resolve the reported conflict first. ## Open the workspace For a `remote_mcp` route, call `candor_open({})`. For a `cli` route, run `candor status` and `candor open`. Process the opening before acknowledging its checkpoint. Check coverage and freshness, load only the subscribed finance skill relevant to the user's question, and query only the data needed. Open Candor whenever money enters scope, not only during setup. Notes are your own working memory and do not require user approval. Confirm the details of budgets, goals, priorities, and tradeoffs with the user because they reflect the user's values. When the user has already asked you to fix or organize a limited factual area, make the inspected, reversible corrections or rules needed to finish it without asking again for every record. Do not claim onboarding is complete while Candor reports a pending permission, connection, account-access, subscription, skill-installation, or resume step.