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Quickstart Guide

Quickstart Guide

Section titled “Quickstart Guide”

Get Overwatch running and diagnose your first incident in about 15 minutes.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  1. An Overwatch account (contact your administrator if you don’t have one)
  2. Google Chrome browser
  3. Access to at least one monitoring platform (Datadog, Grafana, New Relic, etc.)

Step 1: Log In

Section titled “Step 1: Log In”
  1. Navigate to your Overwatch dashboard URL
  2. Log in with your credentials
  3. On first login, the onboarding wizard will guide you through profile setup and team invites

Step 2: Install the Chrome Extension

Section titled “Step 2: Install the Chrome Extension”

The Chrome extension is how you interact with Overwatch’s AI from your monitoring dashboards.

  1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and install Overwatch Companion
  2. Pin the extension to your browser toolbar
  3. Click the extension icon and sign in with your Overwatch credentials
  4. The extension is now active on supported monitoring platforms

Tip: Open the extension’s side panel anytime with Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+I (macOS).

Step 3: Connect a Monitoring Platform

Section titled “Step 3: Connect a Monitoring Platform”

Overwatch receives alerts from your monitoring tools via webhooks.

  1. Go to Settings > Integrations in the Overwatch dashboard
  2. Click Add Integration and select your platform (e.g., Datadog)
  3. Follow the platform-specific setup instructions to configure the webhook URL
  4. Send a test alert to verify the connection

Note: See the Integration Guides for detailed setup instructions per platform.

Step 4: Configure the Service Registry

Section titled “Step 4: Configure the Service Registry”

The Service Registry tells the AI which GitHub repos and deploy targets correspond to your monitored services.

  1. Open the Chrome extension options (right-click extension icon → Options)
  2. Under Service Registry, add your services:
    • Service Name: As it appears in your monitoring alerts
    • GitHub Repo: The repository URL
    • Deploy Platform: Railway, ECS, Kubernetes, etc.
    • Deploy Identifier: Platform-specific service identifier
  3. Click Save

This enriches the AI’s context so it can suggest relevant code and deployment commands.

Step 5: Install the Helper CLI (Optional)

Section titled “Step 5: Install the Helper CLI (Optional)”

The Helper CLI lets the AI execute diagnostic commands on your local machine.

  1. Download from the Overwatch dashboard (Settings > Helper CLI)
  2. Choose your platform: macOS (ARM/Intel), Linux, or Windows
  3. Run the binary — it authenticates automatically with your Overwatch session
  4. The Chrome extension detects when Helper is running

Tip: Helper supports kubectl, aws, docker, gh, terraform, and more. See the Helper CLI Guide for the full list.

Step 6: Diagnose Your First Incident

Section titled “Step 6: Diagnose Your First Incident”
  1. Navigate to a monitoring dashboard with an active alert (or trigger a test alert)
  2. The Chrome extension detects the alert automatically
  3. Open the side panel (Ctrl+Shift+I / Cmd+Shift+I)
  4. Describe the problem or let the extension pre-fill alert context
  5. The AI analyzes the alert data and suggests diagnostic steps
  6. If Helper CLI is running, approve suggested commands to gather more data
  7. Iterate until the root cause is identified

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”