5-Minute Quickstart
The fastest path from sign-up to your first experiment.
① Sign up
- Open
varaos.comand hit Sign up (top right) - Pick one: email + password, or Google one-tap (faster)
- Have an invite code (
VARA-XXXX-XXXX)? Enter it for extra Pro time (optional) - You land in the Dashboard; one account works on every platform
/pricing and fill the 5-minute survey for 30–90 days.② Meet the interface
The Dashboard has three areas:
New button + Experiments / Materials / Chats
Today's plan, recent experiments & materials
Chat box + context + model switch
On mobile: bottom tabs Home / Experiments / Library / Me + a center Ask Vara button.
③ Pick your starting point
Both are common: manage your own experiments, or reproduce someone else's protocol.
Path 1 · Manage your own experiments
Digitize the experiment you're already running. Fastest is to just talk to Vara:
"Create a THP-1 differentiation experiment for me"
- Vara shows an action card; hit [Confirm] to create it and open the detail page
- Keep going: "add a step: PMA 100ng/mL for 48h" and it adds another card
- Later: log each run, tune parameters, and reproduce into a new version to compare
Path 2 · Reproduce / import an existing protocol
Following a paper, another AI, or a reference? Three ways to import, all going through Smart Review before becoming a full experiment:
- Parse a paper / photo: drag a PDF, lab photo, or handwritten note into the chat
- Import from an external AI: already drafted a protocol in ChatGPT / Claude / DeepSeek? Bring the whole set in, no cold start
- Reproduce from the library: paste a DOI, one-click reproduce open-access papers
④ Sample experiment and starter checklist
If you have no experiments yet, the home page is a starter page: upload a file, paste text (such as a chat with an AI), or open an example. Once you have experiments of your own, the home page starts with your running and paused runs, the checklist, today's plan and recent experiments, with no upload entry on top. To bring in a new protocol, use “+ New” in the left sidebar, “New” next to Recent experiments on the home page, or “+” at the top right of the Experiments page on a phone. All three show the same choices: upload a protocol or paper, paste steps, import from external AI, plus a blank experiment and a new material. The upload dialog lists the file size, text length and upload rate limits. You can also drag a file anywhere on the home page and drop it to start the upload. “See an example first” opens a sample experiment that is already set up (an organoid experiment from a Nature paper), with no review step, so you can start a run and check off steps right away.
Don't need the sample data anymore? Delete the sample experiment the same way you delete any experiment: the sample materials and sample parse record Vara created go with it, so there is nothing left to clean up one by one in the materials library. You can also clear it from User menu → Delete sample data, or the “Delete sample” button next to the badge on the sample experiment's page. It goes to the trash first, not deleted outright.
The top of the home page shows a “Next steps” checklist with three things: check off a step in the example, log a run, and add your own protocol. Each item takes you to the right place in one tap, and finished items are crossed out. Once all three are done the checklist goes away, or you can close it with the button in its corner. The sample experiment page shows the same checklist.