---
title: Introduction
description: What Ysra is, where you use it, and the ideas the rest of the documentation builds on.
---

Ysra takes a request — a feature, a bug report, a sentence typed on your phone — and
works on it in its own isolated machine. It reads your repository, plans, edits,
runs your commands, and keeps going until your own checks pass or it can say
precisely why they don't.

What makes it different from a chat assistant is that the backend owns durable
state: projects, sessions, candidate revisions, checkpoints, findings, usage,
approvals and audit evidence. You can leave, come back on another device, and
pick up exactly where the work stands.

## Where you use Ysra

| Surface | Best for |
|---|---|
| **Portal** (web) | Reviewing diffs, evidence and previews; managing policy, wallet and Knowledge. |
| **Mobile** (iOS, Android) | Starting work in one sentence, answering questions, shipping from anywhere. |
| **API** | Your own clients and automation. Everything the apps do goes through it. |

## How a request becomes a pull request

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    goal([Goal]) --> plan[Compile goal &<br/>acceptance criteria]
    plan --> work[Edit an isolated<br/>candidate]
    work --> verify{Native<br/>verification}
    verify -- fails --> repair[Bounded repair]
    repair --> work
    verify -- passes --> review[Independent<br/>review]
    review --> deliver([Deliver within<br/>your policy])
```

1. **You describe the outcome.** Ysra derives acceptance criteria when you
   don't give any, and snapshots your [autonomy policy](../workspace/autonomy-policy.md)
   so later edits never change a running session's contract.
2. **It works on a candidate**, never on your default branch, and records a
   checkpoint you can rewind to.
3. **Your repository's own commands decide** whether the work passes. See
   [Verification](../developer/review.md).
4. **Delivery is separate from completion.** A verified candidate is only pushed,
   opened as a pull request or deployed when your policy allows it.

!!! tip "Start small"
    A first session on a well-tested repository with a narrow goal — "fix the
    failing date parser test" — shows the whole loop in a few minutes.

## Next steps

<div class="cards" markdown>

- [**Quickstart**](quickstart.md)

    Sign in, connect a repository and run a session.

- [**How Ysra works**](../concepts/how-ysra-works.md)

    The five stages of every job, and the loop inside the work.

- [**Walkthrough: an online store**](../guides/walkthrough.md)

    One real session: a storefront and back office from one brief.

</div>