First Boot

What happens the first time you launch OctoMY™ on a brand-new device — and why you don't have to set anything up.

When to use this

You just installed the app on a new machine

You want to know what's been created on your behalf so you can decide whether to upgrade it to a passphrase-protected identity

You're curious why nothing prompted you for a password during install

For the conceptual background — what a Sentient is, what a Hive is, how identity is stored — see Sentient Identity.

What happens automatically

On first launch, StartupStateMachine discovers no existing identity on disk and runs the §SP-1 auto-create branch silently. The app:

Generates a Sentient display name using SentientNameGenerator (libid). The result is an adjective_noun phrase from the existing word lists — something like curious_otter or sunny_crane. You can rename it later from the Sentient Lobby.
Creates a Sentient identity with a fresh Ed25519 keypair. The SID (Sentient Identity hex) is derived from the public key.
Creates a Hive to store the Sentient's vault, contacts, and per-Node hives. The hive's on-disk id is SID-<your-sid-hex>. You never see it; the UI shows the Sentient's display name everywhere.
Mounts the Hive without prompting. This is what the spec calls a Shadow Sentient — an identity that exists on this device but is not protected by a passphrase. The hive is mounted with an internal throwaway secret known only to the app.

There is no wizard, no progress bar, no password prompt during this step. You arrive at the home activity with a working identity already active.

Then the upgrade prompt

Immediately after step 4 completes, the app pushes SecurityUnboxingActivity once. This is the only interruption to first-boot — and it's optional.

The activity offers:

Action	What happens
Set a passphrase	The Shadow Sentient becomes a Full Sentient. Your hive is now passphrase-protected; the app prompts you for the passphrase on every launch. You also get a BIP39 recovery phrase — write it down before continuing.
Skip	The Shadow Sentient stays a Shadow. The app remembers the dismissal and won't ask again at next launch. You can upgrade later from the Sentient Lobby's Upgrade to full entry.

Either choice is valid. Shadow is fine for development machines, dedicated agent/remote hardware, or any context where the device's own security guarantees are sufficient. Full is the right answer for personal laptops, shared workstations, or anything that might leave your physical control.

What you'll see in the Lanyard

After the optional upgrade prompt is dismissed, the navigation header's Lanyard (top-right corner) shows your newly-created identity:

The sentient chip (green border) carries your Sentient's identicon — a face-style pixel art generated deterministically from your SID — and its display name (the adjective_noun phrase if you didn't change it).
The node chip (blue border) is initially unbound (No node) until you select or create a node. Click it to open Node Selection.
The hive button (bare green hexagon glyph, left of the sentient chip) is visible because your Sentient hive is mounted. Click it to open the Hive Lobby.

The chips' display names update everywhere the app surfaces them (status widgets, OPAL prompts, log lines).

Why no first-boot wizard?

Earlier versions of OctoMY™ ran a multi-step Unboxing Wizard on first launch: pick a passphrase, generate keys, choose a name. The current spec (the internal Startup Identity Unification spec) replaced that wizard with the silent §SP-1 auto-create path because:

A fresh device with no identity is always in a known starting state. The wizard's questions had no real branch — every user clicked through the same options.
Forcing a passphrase up front discouraged users from trying the app at all. Shadow-by-default lets the user evaluate the app first and upgrade when they're invested.
Skipping a wizard cuts the time-to-running from minutes to under a second.

The Shadow → Full upgrade path is still the same code (SecurityUnboxingActivity's upgrade mode), just reachable later from the Sentient Lobby instead of running unconditionally at boot.

What if I want a Full Sentient on day one?

Either:

Accept the auto-created Shadow, then pick Set a passphrase on the prompt that immediately follows. This is the canonical path — works on every device type.
Restore from a BIP39 recovery phrase or migration bundle if you already have an identity from another device. The Sentient Lobby's Import entry is the way in; see Migrate an Identity (when authored) for the full restore flow.

In both cases the upgrade activity gives you a fresh recovery phrase. Write it down. Without it a forgotten passphrase is unrecoverable.