Quick Start Guide

This guide walks you through connecting your first application to Catalio and seeing the living specification take shape. In about 15 minutes, you’ll have an AI-enriched view of your system’s components, business rules, and dependencies.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A Catalio account (request access or sign up at catalio.ai)
• Access to an organization
• A system to connect (repository, API access, or metadata export)

Step 1: Create an Application

An application in Catalio represents a system you want to document – whether it’s a legacy billing platform, a Salesforce org, or an internal tool.

1. Log in and select your organization
2. Navigate to Applications in the sidebar
3. Click New Application
4. Fill in the details:

- Name: Legacy Billing Platform
- Description: Core billing system handling invoicing, payments, and subscription management
- Platform: Custom (or select Salesforce, ServiceNow, NetSuite if applicable)

Step 2: Connect & Sync Components

Once your application is created, connect it to your source system to begin extraction.

For Repository-Based Systems

1. Go to your application’s Integrations tab
2. Connect your GitHub, GitLab, or other repository
3. Catalio begins syncing components automatically

For Platform-Based Systems (Salesforce, ServiceNow, NetSuite)

1. Go to your application’s Integrations tab
2. Select your platform connector
3. Authorize the connection
4. Choose which metadata to sync

What Gets Synced

Catalio pulls in every building block of your system:

• Fields and objects – data structures and their relationships
• Endpoints and APIs – how the system communicates
• Business rules – validation logic, calculated fields, workflow triggers
• UI elements – pages, forms, and their configurations

Step 3: Review AI Enrichment

After syncing, Catalio’s AI enriches every component:

• Summaries explain what each component does in plain language
• Semantic tags make components searchable by purpose, not just name
• Relationships show how components connect and depend on each other

Navigate to your application to see the enriched component inventory. Each component shows its AI-generated summary and tags alongside the raw metadata from your system.

Step 4: Extract Requirements

With enriched components, you can now reverse-engineer the requirements your system fulfills:

1. Navigate to Requirements from the sidebar
2. Click New Requirement or use AI to suggest requirements based on your components
3. Catalio maps components to requirements, building your living specification

AI-Assisted Requirement Generation

Use the AI chat to generate requirements from your enriched inventory:

• “What are the key business rules in the billing module?”
• “Generate requirements for the payment processing workflow”
• “What validation rules exist on the customer object?”

Step 5: Explore Your Living Specification

Your application now has a living specification – a structured, searchable, always-current view of what your system does:

• Applications show your connected systems
• Components list every building block with AI summaries
• Requirements describe what the system should do
• Processes map end-to-end workflows
• Personas define who uses the system and how

Next Steps

Now that you have your first application connected:

• The Living Specification – Understand how your specification stays current
• Gap Analysis – Plan a modernization with confidence
• Sharing & Collaboration – Invite your team to review and contribute
• Integrations – Connect more enterprise platforms

Common Questions

Q: How long does the initial sync take? A: It depends on system complexity. Most applications complete initial sync in under 10 minutes.

Q: Can I connect multiple applications? A: Yes – connect as many systems as you need. Each gets its own living specification, and you can trace requirements across applications.

Q: What if my system doesn’t have a native connector? A: Catalio works with any system that has APIs or metadata access. You can also import metadata via file upload.

Get Help

Need assistance? Try these resources:

• Contact Support
• Request a Demo for a guided walkthrough
• Check the API Documentation for programmatic access