Help Guides
Substratal on Windows
Substratal Hub for Windows is the native Windows 11 app for the Substratal platform. It looks and behaves like the other Hub apps, with Windows conventions: a navigation pane on the left, a search box in the title bar, keyboard shortcuts for everything, and Windows' own credential storage.
It's built management-first, so the Administration and Developer sections arrive before the personal ones. This page says what each release contains, and gets updated whenever the app's main branch changes.
What you need
- Windows 11, or Windows 10 22H2 or later, on x64 or Arm.
- A Substratal account. Administrators also need two-factor authentication turned on (see Signing in and keeping your account secure).
Install
Today (developer preview): there's no signed installer yet. Build the app from source with the .NET 10 SDK: see the README in the substratalapps-windows repository. Signed packages with automatic updates through App Installer are the next release step.
When signed builds ship, you'll install once from App Installer, and the app updates itself on launch.
Sign in
- Open Substratal. The Sign in page fills the window.
- Leave Environment on Production, unless you're a developer working against a local API. In that case, choose Local devserver.
- Enter your email and password, then Sign in (or press Enter).
- If you use two-factor authentication, enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app on the Two-factor page, or turn on Use a recovery code instead.
The app remembers you. Your session is stored in Windows Credential Locker, separately for each environment, and the next launch signs you straight in. Settings → Sign out ends the session on the server and removes it from this PC.
If an administrator signs you out, or you sign out everywhere from another device, you're returned to Sign in with "Your session ended. Sign in again."
Administrators: if your account has platform permissions but two-factor is off, a banner asks you to turn it on before you continue.
Find your way around
| Area | Where | What's there |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | Top of the pane | Home, Inbox, Organizations |
| Administration | Middle of the pane | Users, Access, Roles, Audit Log, Send notification |
| Developer | Middle of the pane | Applications, API Keys, Webhooks, Tenant |
| Account, Plan & Billing, Settings | Bottom of the pane | Your own account and preferences |
You see only the sections and items your permissions allow. A support agent sees Users, Access, Roles and Audit Log, for example, but not API Keys.
The search box in the title bar is the command palette. Type a screen's name ("audit", "api keys") or its ID ("KEY-01"), or paste an ID such as usr_…, app_…, key_…, org_… or whk_… to jump straight to that record.
Help is one key away. Press F1, or choose the ? button in any page's header, to open that screen's help page.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+K or Ctrl+E | Search and jump (command palette) |
| Ctrl+1 … Ctrl+6 | Home, Inbox, Organizations, Account, Plan & Billing, Settings |
| Ctrl+Shift+1 … 4 | Users, Access, Roles, Audit Log |
| Ctrl+Alt+1 … 4 | Applications, API Keys, Webhooks, Tenant |
| F5 or Ctrl+R | Refresh the current list |
| Alt+Left | Back |
| F1 | Help for the current screen |
A shortcut works only for items you can see in the navigation pane.
Appearance
Settings → Appearance has the same ten themes as every Hub app: five light and five dark. The defaults are Moss Paper and Forest Floor. Choose Match Windows to follow your Windows light or dark setting. Windows high-contrast themes always take priority. See Themes and appearance.
Notifications on Windows
The Substratal API doesn't send push notifications to Windows. Instead, the app checks your inbox every minute while it's running, and shows new items as Windows notifications, with the unread count on the taskbar icon. See Notifications.
Planned: the inbox and its Windows notifications are in a later release. Until then, read your notifications in another Hub app or by email.
When an update is needed
The app tells the API which version it was built for. If that version is being retired, a banner says "A new version of Substratal is available. This version stops working on {date}." After that date, it says "Update Substratal to continue." and the app stops connecting until you update. See API versioning for how versions work.
What's in this release
0.1 (developer preview). Working:
- Sign in, two-factor, staying signed in, and signing out.
- The navigation pane, gated by your permissions, plus the command palette, keyboard shortcuts and F1 help.
- Users (USR-01): search by name, email or ID, filter by status, and page through the directory.
- Settings → Appearance, with all ten themes.
Every other screen is in the navigation and opens a page that describes what it will do, with a link to its help. They arrive release by release, Administration first.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Email or password is incorrect." | Check both, and that Environment is right. After 5 failures in 15 minutes, sign-in pauses for 15 minutes. |
| "You're offline." | Check your connection. The app doesn't queue changes offline, so nothing is lost or sent twice. |
| A section you expect is missing | Your account doesn't have that permission. Ask an administrator to check Roles. |
| "Something went wrong on our side. Request ID req_…" | Copy the request ID and send it to support. It identifies the exact request. |
Screens in this guide
AUTH-01 · Sign in AUTH-02 · Two-factor challenge GLB-01 · Command palette GLB-03 · System states SET-01 · Settings — Global USR-01 · Users