Chapter 1
Welcome and how this manual works
What this manual is for, the words it uses, how it is laid out and the rules that keep a first test drive safe.
What this manual is
This is the Cockpit Flight Deck Manual. It works like the owner's manual of a car: you do not read it front to back once and shelve it. You keep it open while you do a job, find the page for that job, follow the steps, and check the result against the lines that say what you should see.
Cockpit is a chat for people who build on Salesforce and MuleSoft. You describe what you want, the Copilot reads the systems you have connected, answers in plain words, and proposes changes that you approve one by one. Muse for Mule.
The manual is written for one reader in particular: an enterprise architect who leads a small team of developers and who will first try Cockpit on free, throwaway accounts before anything real is connected. If that is you, read chapters 1 to 4 in order, then use the rest as a reference.
ADVISORY · The test-drive rule
Connect free, throwaway accounts made with a public Gmail first. Connect real systems only after the test drive has shown you what Cockpit reads, what it asks permission for, and what it never does. Chapter 3 builds those accounts and chapter 6 connects them.
The words this manual uses
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Copilot | The AI that answers in the chat, reads your connected systems with tools, and proposes changes. It works for you; it does not act on its own. |
| Captain | A team administrator: the person who creates a team, chooses what each member may connect, and can remove members. Only for teams, switched on per customer; see the status of this edition and chapter 9. |
| Crew | The members of a team. Only for teams, switched on per customer. |
| Sandbox | The safe mode. Cockpit can read everything you have connected, and nothing can be created, changed, posted, sent or deleted. |
| Production mode | The mode in which Cockpit can also make changes, but only where a write action exists, and only after you approve each change on an approval card. It says nothing about what kind of org you connected. |
| Approval card | The box in the chat that shows exactly what a change will do and waits for you to approve or deny it. |
| Connector | A system you connect to Cockpit: Salesforce, MuleSoft, GitHub, Slack or Postman. Your Google sign-in is listed with them. |
How the manual is laid out
| Chapter | Use it when you want to |
|---|---|
| 1 Welcome | Learn the words and the conventions. |
| 2 What Cockpit is | Understand the safety model, what is stored, and what the Copilot can and cannot do. |
| 3 Pre-flight | Make the free test accounts. |
| 4 Boarding | Request access, wait for approval, sign in. |
| 5 The controls | Find what every screen and button does. |
| 6 Connecting each system | Connect Salesforce, MuleSoft, GitHub, Slack and Postman. |
| 7 Your first flights | Try the example prompts and judge the answers. |
| 8 Production flight | Understand writes, and use the checklist before approving one. |
| 9 Captain and Crew | Invite people, choose what each may connect, and sign in to a team (only for teams, switched on per customer). |
| 10 Troubleshooting | Look up a message you are seeing. |
| 11 Glossary | Look up a word. |
| 12 Quick reference card | Keep one page next to you. |
| 13 The Workbench | Run SOQL and SOSL, chart results, browse objects and fields, read Apex and MuleSoft logs, and see MuleSoft deployments and APIs, on a page that only reads (arriving). |
| 14 The project board | See your work as cards that move by themselves, and open each project phase when you are ready (beta, switched on for testers). |
| Appendices | Scopes table, keyboard and platform notes, support contact, the owner's Admin Health view. |
Each chapter is a tab. On a screen, the tabs run along the top; in the printed booklet each chapter starts on a new page. The booklet is the same text as the pages, in order, at the print view.
Reading conventions
- Numbered steps are things you do, in order. A line that begins "You should see" says what the screen shows when the step worked. If you do not see it, stop and look at chapter 10 before going on.
- Checklists have boxes. Tick them on paper, or copy them into your own notes.
- Example prompts are shown in a box labelled "Ask the Copilot". Type or paste them into the chat as they are, then change the names to your own.
- Figures marked "Screenshot" are placeholders for real captures from the test drive. The list of what to capture is at the end of the manual.
- Illustrations are small drawings reproduced from how the product is built. They are labelled "Illustration" and are not screenshots.
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| WARNING | Something can change data in a system you care about, or cannot be undone. Read it before you act. |
| CAUTION | Something can waste time or leak a secret if done carelessly. |
| ADVISORY | Useful background or a recommendation. |
| TO BE CONFIRMED | A sentence the product owner has not yet confirmed. Do not rely on it until the label is gone. |
| ARRIVING | A feature that is designed or being built and is not in the product you are using. Nothing marked arriving is promised for a date. |
The route in one page
From nothing to a safe first flight
Make the test accounts (chapter 3): a public Gmail, a password manager, two Salesforce Developer Edition orgs, two MuleSoft trials, GitHub, Postman and a Slack workspace.
Request access, wait for approval, sign in (chapter 4). Your 7-day trial starts at your first sign-in.
Check that the chip at the top says Sandbox (chapter 5).
Connect the test accounts one by one (chapter 6), pressing Test on each.
Try the example prompts (chapter 7) and check each answer against the lines that say what to check.
Only when you are comfortable, read chapter 8 before you switch on Production mode, and then only with a checklist in hand.
The setup runbook that this manual grew from estimated about three hours in one sitting for chapters 3 and 6 together. Treat that as an estimate: vendor sign-ups wait on emails and trial activation.
Three rules that keep you safe
- Secrets go in the password manager, never in chat, email or a document. That includes passwords, Consumer Secrets, client secrets and API keys.
- When a screen says a key is shown once, keep that page open until you have pasted the key where the step says. If you close it, create a new key.
- Do every first test in Sandbox. In Sandbox nothing can be changed, even by mistake.
CAUTION
Do not paste real customer data, real credentials or anything from a production system into a test-drive chat. What you type is sent to the AI provider (chapter 2) and kept with the chat.
Status of this edition
This edition describes the product as it is built today. Where something is designed but not shipped, the text says arriving. Where the owner has not yet confirmed a statement, it says to be confirmed.
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Web console in a browser | Available. |
| Mac app (Apple silicon) and Windows app (Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit) | Available as beta downloads from the Account page and from the chat's top bar. |
| iPhone and Android apps | Coming. They are not available to download yet. |
| Attach menu (the plus button beside the chat box) | Arriving. It exists in the build but is switched off for most accounts. |
| Org Discovery Report | Available where it is switched on for your environment; ask support if you do not see it. |
| Teams: Captain and Crew | Built. Only for teams, switched on per customer (chapter 9). |
| Project board | Beta, switched on for testers (chapter 14). |
| Admin Health view | For the owner only, where switched on (Appendix D). |
| Writes in Production mode | Switched on in stages, one kind of write at a time (chapter 8). Until a write kind is on for your environment, the Copilot says it has no write action for it. |
Vendor screens (Salesforce, MuleSoft, GitHub, Postman, Slack, Google) change often. The vendor steps in chapters 3 and 6 were written from the setup runbook and the vendors' documented flows. Where a vendor screen looks different, follow its prompts and keep to the intent of the step.