This page is the practical first day. Not the architecture, not the deploy steps, just: what you are looking at, how to get in, and the handful of things to actually do once you are there. It is written for the person who runs the practice, not the person who set up the server. If you want the technical setup instead, jump to The stack.
What you are logging into
Opbox is one secure web app for your practice, and your practice has its own copy of it. Each client gets their own box: their own private web app, their own database, their own walls. Nothing on your box is shared with anyone else’s, and there is no shared “Opbox cloud” where everyone’s matters sit side by side. When you open the link to your practice, you are opening a system that holds only your firm’s work.
Behind that one web app lives everything: your matters, your documents, your clients, your bills, your files, and an AI assistant that can do real work for you. You reach all of it through the same front door, and so does the assistant. That is the whole shape of it: one app, one place, everything inside.
There is no shared “Opbox cloud”. Your matters, documents, and clients live only on your box - nobody else’s data is ever beside yours, and yours is never beside anyone else’s.
Signing in
You reach your practice at its web address and sign in with your email and password. That is the entire ceremony on day one. Once you are in, the assistant and all of your data are right there behind the screen, ready to use.
A few things worth knowing, without going down a rabbit hole:
- Your sign-in is your key. Everything you do is done as you, on the record, with your name on it. There is no anonymous way in and no shared login.
- You only see what you are allowed to see. Staff get the everyday working surface; clients who are given a link see only their own matter and nothing else. The system decides this for you; you never have to police it by hand.
- The most serious actions ask for a second factor. Anything that moves money or tears something down asks you to re-prove yourself first, even if you are already signed in. A stolen everyday session cannot reach the money.
That is all you need for the first day. If you are the person signing off on putting regulated client data in, the full picture of who-can-see-what is in Security & permissions.
The shape of the screen
Once you are in, three areas cover almost everything you will do.
The matters list. Your home base. Every matter (every case, application, incorporation, or estate) is a row you can scan, sort, and open. This is where you start your day and where you come back to find things.
A matter, opened. Click a matter and it opens into one panel with three parts:
- The steps run down the left. A matter is a piece of work with an order to it, and the steps are that order. One step is the active one (the thing being worked on now); the rest are done, waiting, or skipped. You can see at a glance where the work has got to.
- The detail sits in the centre. The substance of the matter: its title, status, the parties, the documents, whatever you are looking at right now.
- The activity runs down the right. A live feed of what has happened on this matter and what is related to it. Because every action is recorded, this feed is honest: it is the real history, not a summary someone typed.
The agent chat. A conversation box with the AI assistant. This is not a help desk for the software; it is a way to do the work. You can ask it to advance a matter, draft a document, find something, or summarise where things stand, and it does the actual thing. The chat and the screens are two doors into the same building: ask the assistant to advance a matter, or click the button yourself, and the exact same thing happens underneath.
There is also a command line for people who like one, but you do not need it on day one.
Do your first things
Here is the short list of everyday actions to try. Each one is framed as the ordinary thing it is. The quiet
part worth knowing: behind every one of these is a single named action the system calls a “verb” (a short
label like matter.create), and every verb is checked and recorded the same way, every time. You never type a
verb; you click a button or ask the assistant, and the verb is what runs underneath. The full menu of them is
in Capabilities and the Verb reference.
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Create a matter
From the matters list, start a new one and give it a title. Everything else has sensible defaults, so you can have a live matter in seconds. (Underneath:
matter.create.) Or just ask the assistant: “Open a new matter for the Acme incorporation.” -
Advance a step
Open a matter and move it forward. Advancing finishes the step that is active now and works out what becomes active next, in the right order, so there is always a clear “what now”. (Underneath:
matter.advance.) In chat: “Advance the Acme matter to the next step.” -
Generate a document
Draft a document from a template with the client’s details filled in: an engagement letter, a witness statement, a standard form. If something required is missing, it refuses to produce a document with a silent gap rather than guess. You can then edit it in place, keep every version, and download a PDF or DOCX copy. (Underneath:
doc.generate.) In chat: “Draft the engagement letter for this matter.” -
Attach a file
Upload something that came from outside: a scanned passport, a signed agreement, an exhibit. Opbox holds the bytes intact and encrypted, and links the file to the matter so it shows up where it belongs. (Underneath:
file.put.) In chat: “Attach this scan to the Acme matter as an exhibit.” -
Ask the agent to do something
This is the one to lean on. The assistant can read a matter, draft in it, update it, find things across your practice, and walk a piece of work forward, all by calling the same verbs you would. It is deliberately bounded: it can only act through the same front door you use, it cannot reach the open internet or run loose code, and it is held to a metered level of how much it may do on its own. The serious, money-and-destruction actions are off-limits to it by default. So you can hand it real work without handing it the keys. How that boundary is drawn is in Agents & MCP.
The fastest way to work is to ask the assistant. It does the real thing - advancing a matter, drafting a document, finding something across your practice - through the same checked verbs you would, never around them.
A natural first session looks like this: create a matter, ask the assistant to draft the engagement letter, attach the client’s ID, advance the first step. Four ordinary moves, each one on the record.
Where to go next
You now know enough to use it. When you want to understand what is underneath:
- Architecture - the four layers and how one request flows from a click to the record, in plain terms.
- The data model - the building blocks (matters, steps, documents, files, parties, forms, bills) and how they fit into one coherent picture of a piece of work.
- Features - what the product can do, area by area.
- The stack - for whoever stands your box up: the services, the secrets, and the bring-up.
And for the rules underneath every screen and every chat message, the kernel is the single front door that checks and records all of it.