# Getting started

Connect Kochab to the services that run your self-hosted media stack.

Canonical: https://kochab.io/docs/getting-started/

import Callout from '@components/Callout.astro';

Kochab talks straight to your own services. There is no Kochab account to create and no server
of ours between your phone and your stack: you add each service by address and API key, and the
app keeps those credentials in your device keychain.

## Add your first service

Open **More**, then **Stacks & Services**, then the **+** in the top right and choose
**Add service**. Adding a service takes three short steps: where it is, its credentials, and a
connection test that has to pass before anything is saved.

If you would rather not type addresses, **Find services** on that same menu scans your network
and offers what it finds.

<Callout>

Which service you add first decides how much of the rest you have to type by hand. Some
services already know where the rest of your stack lives, and Kochab reads that: add Prowlarr
and it lists the Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr instances synced to it; add Seerr and it offers the
Sonarr and Radarr behind it. Each *arr in turn knows its own download clients. Start with
Prowlarr or Seerr and most of the stack shows up as a list to work through instead of a hunt
for each address.

</Callout>

Full walkthrough: [Add and configure a service](/docs/add-a-service/). Per-service ports and
where to find each API key: [Service setup guides](/docs/service-setup/).

## What a stack is

A **stack** is one set of services that live together, usually one machine or one reverse proxy
with a different port per service. Your first service sets the host, and everything you add
afterwards prefills it, so most services need only a port.

Most people never need a second stack. Add one when you genuinely manage a separate box.

## Finding your way around

Five tabs, organized by what you are doing rather than by which service answers:

- **Home** - service health, what is downloading, what is playing, and what lands this week.
- **Search** - find a title across your libraries and request or add it.
- **Downloads** - the queue across every download client at once, with pause, resume, and retry.
- **Library** - everything you have, plus a calendar and a wanted list.
- **More** - Activity (who is watching), Requests, Analytics, Stacks & Services, and Settings.

One screen answers one question, so a job that spans three services is still one place in
Kochab. Health, queue, activity and upcoming releases all land on Home together, whichever
services happen to supply them.

## When something needs a second look

- Homelab services often use self-signed TLS. Kochab shows you the fingerprint and asks before
  it trusts anything. See [Certificate trust](/docs/cert-trust/).
- Reaching your stack through a reverse proxy, tunnel, or VPN has its own traps, including
  single sign-on gates that silently block API access. See
  [Reverse proxies and remote access](/docs/remote-access/).
- If a service fails the connection test at Add Service, see
  [Why won't Kochab connect to my service?](/docs/troubleshooting/service-wont-connect/) for the
  checklist, in the order that actually finds the cause.