Site: Planekeeper Docs — Monitor software versions across your stack. Planekeeper tracks releases, gathers version data, and alerts on drift.
Section: Getting Started > Account setup
Source: https://docs.planekeeper.com/getting-started/account-setup/
Title: Account setup
Author: Planekeeper
Description: Register for Planekeeper, get approved for the alpha, create your organization, and generate API keys.
Word count: 470
Reading time: 3 min

Contents:
- [Register your account](#register-your-account)
- [Alpha approval](#alpha-approval)
- [Create your organization](#create-your-organization)
  - [Option 1: Create a new organization](#option-1-create-a-new-organization)
- [Create an API key](#create-an-api-key)
- [Authentication methods](#authentication-methods)
- [What's next](#whats-next)

***

# Account setup


This page walks you through registration, alpha approval, organization creation, and API key setup.

## Register your account

Planekeeper uses Supabase for user authentication. You can sign up with an email and password or through an OAuth provider (such as GitHub).

1. Open the Planekeeper login page.
2. Click **Sign up** to create an account.
3. Enter your email address and choose a password, or select an OAuth provider.
4. Confirm your email if prompted.

After registration, you are redirected to the **Pending Approval** page.

## Alpha approval

Planekeeper is currently in a closed Alpha. New signups require administrator approval before you can access the application.

> **info:** 
Your account is created with `is_approved = false`. You cannot access any features until an administrator approves your account.


**What to expect:**

1. After signing up, you see the **Pending Approval** page.
2. Contact your Planekeeper administrator and let them know your email address.
3. The administrator approves your account.
4. **Log out and log back in.** Approval status is cached in your session, so you must start a new session for the change to take effect.

After logging back in, you proceed to the onboarding flow.

## Create your organization

Every resource in Planekeeper belongs to an organization. On your first login after approval, the onboarding page gives you two options:

### Option 1: Create a new organization

1. Enter a name for your organization (for example, your company or team name).
2. Click **Create Organization**.
3. You are assigned as the **owner** of the new organization.

> **info:** 
**Coming soon**

**Invitations and roles** are planned for a future release. Currently, each user creates their own organization during onboarding. Team invitations, role-based permissions, and multi-organization membership will be added in an upcoming update.


## Create an API key

API keys authenticate agents, scripts, and external integrations. To create one:

1. Navigate to the **API Keys** page in the sidebar.
2. Click **Create API Key**.
3. Give the key a descriptive name (for example, `production-agent` or `ci-pipeline`).
4. Copy the generated key immediately. It is displayed only once.

> **warning:** 
Store your API key securely. You cannot retrieve it after leaving the creation page. If you lose it, create a new one and deactivate the old key.


**API key format:** `pk_<id>_<secret>`

Use the key in one of two ways:

- **Header:** `X-API-Key: pk_<id>_<secret>`
- **Cookie:** Set the `planekeeper_api_key` cookie (used by the admin UI)

## Authentication methods

Planekeeper supports two authentication methods:

| Method | Used by | How it works |
|--------|---------|-------------|
| **Supabase JWT** | Human users in the browser | Automatically handled by the Client UI after login |
| **API Key** | Agents, scripts, admin UI | Passed via HTTP header or cookie |

When both are configured, the API server tries JWT authentication first and falls back to API key authentication. You do not need to configure anything special -- the UI handles this automatically.

## What's next

- [Follow the quickstart](https://docs.planekeeper.com/getting-started/quickstart/) to set up your first monitoring pipeline
- [Understand organizations and scoping](https://docs.planekeeper.com/core-concepts/organizations-and-scoping/) to learn how multi-tenancy works


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## Related

- Next: [Quickstart](https://docs.planekeeper.com/getting-started/quickstart/page.md) — End-to-end walkthrough to monitor a Helm chart version with Planekeeper in under 10 minutes.
- Section: [Getting Started](https://docs.planekeeper.com/getting-started/index.md)