> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.surfacearea.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Dashboard Basics

> Sign in, find your organization and project, create API keys, and read the project landing page.

Sign in to the Surface Area dashboard, locate your organization and project, create the API keys your agent needs, and read the project landing page.

<img src="https://mintcdn.com/surface-d3d890e1/I9MKHQA4beHtjYQ2/screenshots/home-control-center.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=I9MKHQA4beHtjYQ2&q=85&s=f41f816470eb77d0b79beee644e382e2" alt="The project home: greeting, Ask-the-Assistant bar, headline metrics, priority signals and spend" width="2880" height="1800" data-path="screenshots/home-control-center.png" />

## Sign in with Google

Surface Area uses Google sign-in. Open your Surface Area instance and select **Continue with Google** on the sign-in page.

Your organization allows specific Google domains. An account on an allowed domain lands in the dashboard; any other account is refused. Ask whoever administers your instance to add your domain or invite your account.

<Info>
  Some instances also offer email-and-password sign-in and other providers. Every method reaches the same dashboard.
</Info>

## Organizations hold projects

Surface Area groups work into organizations, and each organization holds one or more projects. A project owns worlds, traces, scenarios, evaluators, and API keys.

After signing in, pick your organization, then pick a project inside it. Everything in these guides happens inside a single project, and the project ID appears in the URL as `/project/{projectId}/...`.

<Info>
  If you belong to more than one organization or project, switch between them using the selectors in the top navigation.
</Info>

## Create API keys in project settings

Your agent connects to Surface Area with two keys: a public key and a secret key. Create both in project settings.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open project settings">
    Navigate to your project, then open **Settings**. Select the **API keys** tab.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create a new key pair">
    Select **Create new API keys**. Add an optional note to label the key, then confirm. Surface Area generates a public key and a secret key.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Copy the keys immediately">
    Copy both keys from the dialog. The settings panel also shows a ready-to-paste `.env` block with the host and both keys filled in.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Info>
  The secret key is shown only once, at creation time. Copy it before closing the dialog. If you lose it, delete the key and create a new pair -- the old secret cannot be recovered.
</Info>

Set the keys as environment variables where your agent runs. The SDK reads them automatically:

```bash theme={null}
export GATEWAY_HOST="https://withgateway.ai"
export GATEWAY_PUBLIC_KEY="pk-lf-..."
export GATEWAY_SECRET_KEY="sk-lf-..."
```

The command-line tool reads the same three values. `gateway auth login --host ... --public-key ... --api-key ...` stores them instead, and the environment wins when both are present.

The **API keys** tab also lists every key on the project, so you can revoke any key you no longer use. The **LLM connections** tab is separate -- it stores the provider keys (for example, Anthropic or OpenAI) that Surface Area itself uses to run evaluators and judges.

## Read the project landing page

Opening a project lands you on a summary page. Its numbers come from your project's data and change as traffic and scores come in.

**Live metrics** show recent sessions, traces over the last seven days, evaluator pass rate, and spend.

**Connected systems** are the surfaces wired to your agent. Each card is a shortcut into one part of the dashboard with a current count and a status badge:

| Card | What it shows | Where it leads |
| - | - | - |
| Worlds | Worlds in the project and their latest versions | [Worlds](/worlds) |
| Sessions | Total sessions and how many landed this week | [Tracing](/tracing) |
| Evaluators | Number of evaluator checks and how many are active | [Evaluation](/evaluation) |
| Human review | Annotation queues and pending items | Annotation queue dashboard |
| Analytics | Spend and trace volume over the last seven days | Analytics |

A status badge highlights anything that needs attention -- a world whose latest build failed, or pending review items. Select any card to jump to that surface.

<Info>
  An empty landing page means the project has no data yet. Create a world and grade a run against it (see [Quickstart](/get-started/quickstart)), refresh, and the counts populate.
</Info>

## Where worlds live in the sidebar

**Worlds** in the project sidebar lists every world with its slug, latest version, and linked scenario set. Opening one gives you Overview, Scenarios, Schema, Data, Tests, Results, Evals, and History tabs, where History lists every version with the change reason recorded on it.

**Connectors** sits alongside it and holds the templates worlds are built from: the ones the SDK ships, the ones your organization published, and **Create world** on each.


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