Getting started

This page takes you from zero to your first accessibility scan on the Wholisphere platform — the dashboard at app.wholisphere.ai where you run scans, monitor sites, publish VPATs, and manage your team.

Looking for the browser extension (the individual assistive product)? That’s a separate install with no account required — see Install the extension.

1. Get access

Wholisphere is currently an invite-only beta. There are two ways in:

• You were invited. An admin of an existing organization sent you an email with an invitation link. Follow Accepting an invite — it covers the whole flow.
• You requested access. Submit the request form on wholisphere.ai (email + a line about your use case). When your request is approved you get an email, and your address can sign in from then on.

If you try to sign in before either of those has happened, the API returns 403 signup_not_allowed:

{ "error": { "code": "signup_not_allowed", "message": "Sign-ups are invite-only. Request access and we will email you when a spot opens." } }

That’s expected — it means your email isn’t on the list yet.

2. Sign in (magic link)

There are no passwords. Enter your email on the dashboard sign-in page and we email you a one-time link:

1. POST /v1/auth/request with { "email": "you@example.com" } sends the link.
2. The link is valid for 15 minutes and works once.
3. Clicking it sets an HTTP-only whs_session cookie and drops you into the dashboard.

Link requests are throttled (5 per email per hour), so if you mistype your email just wait for the current window or check spam first.

3. Your organization

On first sign-in Wholisphere automatically creates a personal organization for you on the Free plan, with you as its owner. Everything in the platform — products, scans, findings, VPATs, API keys, billing — belongs to an org.

• If you were invited to a team, accept the invite and switch to that org in the org picker. (Your personal org still exists; it’s fine to ignore it.)
• Rename the org or invite teammates under Settings → Members (see Accepting an invite for roles).

4. Create a product and run your first scan

The fastest path is the New engagement wizard in the dashboard. Give it:

• a client / product name,
• one or more URLs (or a sitemap),
• an optional monitoring cadence (daily / weekly / monthly).

One submit creates the product, queues an immediate hosted baseline scan on Wholisphere’s runner fleet, and (if you picked a cadence) arms scheduled monitoring. No CLI, nothing to install.

You can also enqueue a hosted scan directly from Hosted scans → Scan a site, or via the API — see Hosted scanning.

Hosted scanning is in private beta

The hosted runner fleet is rolling out to invited orgs. If it isn’t enabled for your account yet, your job can sit in Queued without progressing, and runner-backed endpoints return 503 runner_disabled. Request access — or run the scan yourself right now from CI:

.github/workflows/accessibility-scan.yml

- uses: wholisphere/scanner-runner@v0   # see note on the Action page — not yet on the marketplace
  with:
    api-key: ${{ secrets.WHOLISPHERE_API_KEY }}
    product-name: Acme App
    product-version: ${{ github.sha }}
    urls: https://example.com/

Full guide: GitHub Action — scan + VPAT. Any CI works — the action wraps the same public API.

5. See your findings

When the scan completes, open Scans in the dashboard:

• Each scan lists findings per page, per WCAG 2.2 criterion, with the evaluation method recorded (deterministic / vision-LLM / human-attested — see Scanning & Monitoring).
• From a completed scan you can render a VPAT, diff against a previous scan, and route regressions to webhooks.

Where to go next

• Accepting an invite — onboarding for invited teammates.
• Plans & billing — quotas, upgrading, and the 14-day Pro trial.
• Authentication — create API keys for CI and integrations.
• Scheduled monitoring and the client status portal.
• TypeScript SDK, CLI, Webhooks.
• Install the extension — the individual assistive product (no account needed).