# Quickstart

Throughline's pilot is **invite-only**. There is no self-serve signup — you
cannot create a production or an account by visiting the app and filling out
a form.

## Getting in

You get access one of two ways:

1. **Your production's admin invites you.** A UPM, coordinator, or another
   admin on the show sends an invite to your email address from inside
   Throughline. The invite is scoped to:
   - the production itself, and
   - usually, one department on it.
2. **Critical Period HQ invites you.** For a new production coming onto the pilot,
   Critical Period's own team sends the first invites to get the show set up.

Either way, the invite arrives by email. There is no public "request access"
page — if you were expecting an invite and don't have one, ask your
production's admin or reach out to Critical Period HQ directly.

## Signing in

Once you have an invite, you sign in one of two ways:

- **With Google.** If your email address is a Google account, sign in with
  Google and Throughline matches you to the person the invite was sent to.
- **With the invite link itself.** The email contains a direct link that
  signs you in without a separate password.

There are no Throughline passwords to set or remember.

## What you'll see first

After signing in, you land on the production you were invited to. If you
hold seats on more than one show, you pick one first.

From there you're in your production's home for your department: the assets
your team owns, the approvals waiting on you, and the deliveries in and out
of your department. Everything else on the production — the full script
breakdown, the schedule, the budget topsheet — is reachable from the same
place, scoped to what your role can see.

## Integrating a tool instead of signing in

If you're building against Throughline rather than using it as a person —
a pipeline script, a render farm hook, a studio dashboard — you don't need
an invite at all. Your production's admin mints a **Throughline access key**
for you in Settings. See [Your keys](keys.html) and either the [REST API
overview](api.html) or the [MCP server](mcp.html) to get started.