Installation

Installing GuideSail on Your App

Before your users can see any guides, you need to add GuideSail to your app. This is a one-time setup — once it's in, all guides you publish will work automatically.

What you'll need

• Your API key — found in your GuideSail dashboard at getguidesail.com/dashboard/import.
• A visitor ID (optional) — a unique identifier for each of your users (e.g. their user ID from your database). Used to track once-only guides and analytics. If omitted, GuideSail assigns an anonymous ID automatically.

Option A — npm package (recommended)

Install the package:

npm install guidesail

Then initialize it in your app:

import guidesail from 'guidesail';

guidesail.sail('YOUR_API_KEY');

Option B — ES module via jsDelivr

If you prefer a CDN import, add the stylesheet and module script to your app's HTML:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/guidesail@1/guidesail.css" />

<script type="module">
  import guidesail from "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/guidesail@1/+esm";
  guidesail.sail("YOUR_API_KEY");
</script>

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the key from your dashboard at getguidesail.com/dashboard/import.

Setting the visitor ID

Pass your logged-in user's ID as the second argument so GuideSail can track once-only guides per user:

guidesail.sail('YOUR_API_KEY', 'user-123');

If you need to set or clear the visitor after the page loads (e.g. after login/logout):

guidesail.setVisitor('user-123');  // after login
guidesail.unsetVisitor();          // after logout

Verifying the installation

Open the browser console on your page and look for a message that says "GuideSail is active". If you see it, the install worked.

How to open the console:

• Keyboard shortcut: Press F12 on Windows, or Cmd + Option + J on Mac. This opens the console directly.
• Right-click method: Right-click anywhere on your page → click Inspect → click the Console tab at the top of the panel that opens.

You can also visit a page with a published automatic guide — it should appear within a few seconds.

If a guide doesn't appear, see [[../Support/Troubleshooting]].