Quickstart

Just want a bot in a meeting?

Use the hosted service — no install. Sign in at vexa.ai/signin with a Google account, copy your API key from your account page, and send a bot:

curl -X POST "https://api.cloud.vexa.ai/bots" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"platform":"google_meet","native_meeting_id":"abc-defg-hij","bot_name":"Vexa"}'

native_meeting_id is the id inside the join URL — abc-defg-hij in https://meet.google.com/abc-defg-hij. New accounts get **

5 of free bot credit and no credit card is required** — about 16 hours of bot time at

0.30/hr (pricing). More calls: Send a bot. The rest of this page self-hosts the whole stack, which is how you get the agent plane as well.

This walkthrough takes you from a clean machine to two first wins: a bot capturing a live meeting transcript, and an agent answering from your workspace. You’ll self-host the whole stack with one command.

Prerequisites

A Linux host (Ubuntu 24.04 recommended for production), git, make, and Docker engine ≥ v26 (make all checks and refuses older engines). A Mac with Docker Desktop works for a local evaluation — everything runs in containers either way.
make all pulls the published, release-validated images — no build, any modest machine works; make lite pulls the single-container all-in-one image and is lighter still. Building from source (make dev) is for contributors and wants 8 vCPUs / 16 GB RAM.
On Apple Silicon: arm64 images are published best-effort (not yet CI-validated) — see Deployment for details.
A transcription (STT) token — get one free at vexa.ai/account, or self-host transcription on a GPU. Default spawns require STT and answer 503 when it is unset; capture-only is {"transcribe_enabled": false} on POST /bots (or TRANSCRIBE_ENABLED=false for the whole deployment). See Configuration.

1. Install and start

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
git clone https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa.git && cd vexa
make all          # full Docker Compose stack — pulls the published images (bot included), prints your API key
                  # contributors: `make dev` builds everything from this checkout instead (:dev tags)

make all brings up the whole stack and prints an API key + your URLs when it finishes:

  Vexa is up.
    Terminal UI : http://localhost:13000
    API gateway : http://localhost:18056
    API key     : vxa_…

Surface	URL
Terminal (web workbench UI)	`http://localhost:13000`
API gateway	`http://localhost:18056`

make all seeds .env from .env.example on first run and mints a self-host API key for you (via deploy/compose/bin/provision-token). The seeded .env ships with every credential empty — make all prints a warning box (and ⚠ lines in the banner) until you fill them: the STT pair for win 1 (transcripts), one model credential for win 2 (agent chat) — either in .env or under Settings → Models in the Terminal. To mint additional scoped keys yourself, see Authentication.

2. First win — capture a meeting (UI)

Open the terminal

Go to http://localhost:13000. You’re already signed in to a self-host account.

Send a bot to a meeting

Start a Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams call, copy the join URL, and add it from the UI. A bot joins the call as a participant — no plugin, no host setup.

Watch the transcript stream

Speak. Speaker-attributed segments appear live, draft-then-confirmed, as the meeting runs.

2′. Same thing over the API

Use the key make all printed, then send a bot and read the transcript:

# the key make all printed (or: make -s provision-token ADMIN_TOKEN=<your ADMIN_TOKEN>)
export API_KEY=vxa_...
export API_BASE=http://localhost:18056

# send a bot — native_meeting_id is the id from the join URL (e.g. abc-defg-hij)
curl -X POST "$API_BASE/bots" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"platform":"google_meet","native_meeting_id":"abc-defg-hij","bot_name":"Vexa"}'

# read the transcript (poll while the meeting runs)
curl -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" \
  "$API_BASE/transcripts/google_meet/abc-defg-hij"

Full surface — translation, WebSocket streaming, recordings, stopping the bot — in the Meetings API.

3. Second win — ask your workspace a question

Every captured meeting compiles into your workspace — a Markdown knowledge base an agent reads and writes like a developer in a repo. Chat with it:

curl -N -X POST "$API_BASE/agent/chat" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prompt":"What did we decide in my last meeting?"}'

The response streams back as Server-Sent Events — message-delta frames carry the reply, commit frames mark anything the agent recorded. See the Agent API.

4. Third win — connect your calendar

Stop pasting links: give Vexa your calendar’s secret ICS address (Google Calendar → Settings → your calendar → Integrate calendar → Secret address in iCal format, the …/private-…/basic.ics one — not the public address above it). Every upcoming event imports; Meet/Zoom/Teams events are armed for auto-join and link-less events remain visible until you add a link. On a Google Workspace domain the secret-address field may need a one-time admin unlock (how).

curl -X POST "$API_BASE/user/calendars" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"Work","ics_url":"https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/…/basic.ics","auto_join":true,"bot_name":"Work Notes"}'

Run POST /user/calendars/{calendar_id}/sync for an immediate result, or wait for the background cycle. Full walkthrough: Calendar sync. Complete endpoint reference: Calendar API.

Next steps

Plan and share a meeting

Prepare a shared knowledge space and invite the people you’re meeting.

Get a report after every meeting

A routine that writes notes, decisions, and follow-ups when a call ends.

Brief me every morning

An unattended agent on a cron schedule.

Authentication

Mint, scope, and rotate API keys for the full stack.

Deploy to production

Docker Compose self-host, configuration, and no-egress transcription.

Start here

How-to: Meetings

How-to: Agents

How-to: Meetings + agents

Core

Concepts

Architecture

API reference

Deployment & operations

Roadmap

Governance

Just want a bot in a meeting?

Prerequisites

1. Install and start

2. First win — capture a meeting (UI)

2′. Same thing over the API

3. Second win — ask your workspace a question

4. Third win — connect your calendar

Next steps

Plan and share a meeting

Get a report after every meeting

Brief me every morning

Authentication

Deploy to production

​Just want a bot in a meeting?

​Prerequisites

​1. Install and start

​2. First win — capture a meeting (UI)

​2′. Same thing over the API

​3. Second win — ask your workspace a question

​4. Third win — connect your calendar

​Next steps

Plan and share a meeting

Get a report after every meeting

Brief me every morning

Authentication

Deploy to production

Just want a bot in a meeting?

Prerequisites

1. Install and start

2. First win — capture a meeting (UI)

2′. Same thing over the API

3. Second win — ask your workspace a question

4. Third win — connect your calendar

Next steps