Start a project in Shyne

You do not need a blank-canvas ritual. Start with the thing you want to ship this week.

Shyne is built around the artifact, not the file format. Name the outcome, then choose the structure that matches it. A first useful session is one finished artifact, not a tour of every feature. If you leave with a six-slide sequence you would actually present, the product has done its job. If you leave with a mental map of the settings pages, it has not.

This guide is the long version of that hour. It assumes you can open app.shyne.ai in a browser or install the desktop app from dl.shyne.ai. It does not assume you have used a multiplayer canvas, an agent, or MCP before.

Create the project

Open Shyne and create a project from Home. A project is the cloud identity and collaboration boundary for its files and canvases. It is not a folder on disk, and it is not the chat. Name it after the work: “Northwind launch,” not “Untitled.” You will share this name with a colleague and with a teammate. A precise name is already a kind of brief.

If you already have brand files — a logo, a PDF, a previous deck — attach them now. Small images and PDFs can ride with the first prompt. Larger files land in the project so later turns can use them. Do not wait until frame eight to discover the only mark in context is a favicon.

Set the theme before you ask for a lot of work. Three or four colors you actually use, type you can defend, spacing that matches the last thing the client approved. The teammate can read this. A blank theme is an invitation to invent a personality.

A task is a durable agent conversation and may be filed in this project later. Opening the project does not create a task. You can talk first and file later, or never talk and only edit. Do not confuse the thread with the document.

Choose a structure

Ask for a deck, a document, a set of posts, or a short film. Shyne will put that work on a canvas as frames, and into a sequence when order or time matters. You can also start from a template and let the teammate fill it.

Use this mapping when you are unsure:

• A poster, social post, scene, cover, or standalone visual: a loose frame on a canvas.
• A presentation, carousel, report, or visual document: an ordered sequence of frames.
• A video, reel, or animated clip: a timed sequence.

Be specific about the audience and the length. “A nine-slide investor update for existing angels” is better than “make a deck.” “Three square posts announcing the waitlist, no more than twelve words each” is better than “some social.” “A fifteen-second bumper with title, product, ask” is better than “a video.”

If the project already has several canvases, name the one you mean. Reads never create a canvas. Mutations never fall back to a magic default. If you are in a brand-new project with one canvas, omission is fine. If you are not, be explicit.

A useful first prompt

Here is a prompt that produces something you can argue with:

“Create a six-slide launch presentation for a design-conscious founder audience. Use our current theme, concise copy, and a different composition on each slide. Slide 1 is the offer. Slide 2 is the problem. Slide 3 is the product. Slide 4 is one proof. Slide 5 is the ask. Slide 6 is contact. Do not invent a second palette.”

Change the count, the audience, and the outline to match your week. Keep the last sentence. It saves you a pass.

If you are making posts instead of a deck, keep the same specificity and change the structure. If you are making a film, add durations you can say out loud.

Make, then correct in place

Watch the first pass land. Everything the agent makes lands as real, selectable layers. You can keep editing by hand without converting or flattening anything.

Select the frame that is wrong and say what you want instead. Move type yourself when it is faster. The agent and the editor are peers on the same graph, so there is no “accept all” wall between you.

Correct the worst frame first. A second pass on one frame is cheaper than a rewrite of the sequence. If the miss is systematic — wrong gold, too many words, every slide a centered title — fix the theme or the instruction, then ask again. If the miss is local, fix the node.

You can work while it works. A heading you are already rewriting and a heading it is still writing can coexist. If you both grab the same node, you will see it. Undo is still undo. One gesture is one step.

If a recent human edit disappeared, the agent wrote from a stale read. Undo. Ask it to re-read that frame and to leave everything outside the request alone.

Invite someone only when it helps

Share the project when a second pair of eyes will change the work. Viewers can look. Editors can make. Project creators and organization admins decide who else gets in and handle access requests in sharing. You do not need a side spreadsheet for “who has the link.”

Do not invite a room to watch you discover the outline. Do invite a viewer when the question is whether slide 4 reads. Do invite an editor when they own a section. Do not give edit access to someone who only needs to review.

The teammate is not a substitute for a colleague, and a colleague is not a substitute for the teammate. Use both when both have a job.

Finish the work

Review the whole sequence. Check text and media at final size. If this is a film, scrub the timeline and look at the quiet frame, not only the one with the joke. If this is a deck, read it out loud. If a sentence is too long to say, it is too long to keep.

Then choose how it leaves:

• Export PNG or JPG for a still.
• Export PDF for a leave-behind.
• Export HTML when the receiver can host it.
• Export PowerPoint when the meeting still wants slides.
• Export MP4 when the sequence has a clock. Every plan can export MP4. Hosted renders use the credit pool. Generating new AI video is a paid media path.

Publishing is a separate, permissioned action. Choose a frame or sequence, pick destinations you have connected, set a time with a timezone if you need one, and inspect the preview. You can post from Shyne directly. If the teammate invokes publishing, the app shows what, where, and when, then asks for permission before the call runs. A scheduled time is not proof of delivery; the persisted target status is.

If the destination is not connected yet, export the file and send it. Do not wait for a channel to exist before the work is real.

If you want your own agent in the room

The in-product teammate is enough for a first session. If you already live in Claude or Cursor, connect MCP after you have a project worth pointing at. Desktop uses http://127.0.0.1:7655/mcp while the app is open. Hosted uses https://mcp.shyne.ai/mcp and OAuth. Name the project and the canvas. Read before you write. The MCP guide is the longer door.

Do not start the first hour by debugging a client. Start it by making a sequence. Add the client when the sequence exists.

A closed loop you can reuse

1. Create and name the project.
2. Attach the two or three files that already define the look.
3. Set the theme.
4. Choose loose frame, ordered sequence, or timed sequence.
5. Ask for one artifact with audience and length.
6. Correct the worst frame by hand.
7. Ask for a second pass only where you still want one.
8. Review at final size.
9. Export, post now, or schedule a release.

That loop is the product. The rest of Shyne — more canvases, more sequences, more people, more channels — is that loop repeated without changing tools.

Where to get stuck, and where not to

If the first pass is ugly, you are not stuck. You are in the product. Fix a frame. If the first pass used the wrong canvas, you are slightly stuck: name the canvas and continue. If you cannot sign in, you are stuck on account, not on Shyne-the-document — follow the sign-in flow and come back to the project.

Do not get stuck in export options before the sequence reads. Do not get stuck in MCP before a frame exists. Do not get stuck comparing plans before you have used a credit. Make the artifact. The rest of the product is easier to see when there is something on the canvas to point at.

What to ignore on day one

Ignore the urge to build a complete design system. Ignore the urge to connect every channel. Ignore the urge to import last year’s entire drive. Ignore comparison shopping mid-sequence. Ignore any prompt that starts with “build me a full brand world.”

Day one is one project, one structure, one artifact, one correction, and one useful delivery — an export, a post, or a scheduled release. If you can do that in an hour, you already know whether Shyne fits the week you actually have.

Start with the thing you want to make. Keep it editable. Leave with something you would send.