Getting Started
Three steps to your first automated newsletter. This takes under 10 minutes if you have your API keys handy.
Step 1: Configure AI
Abstractions uses a language model to index your codebase and write newsletter drafts. You supply the API key — we don't provide a shared model.
- Go to AI in the sidebar
- Select a provider — Anthropic or OpenAI
- Paste in your API key
- Choose the model you want to use for indexing and for generation
- Save
Claude Sonnet or GPT-4o work well for most tasks. Use a more capable model for generation if you want higher-quality results, but for simpler cases like file indexing (which is essentially summarization) a lower cost model would be more efficient in terms of cost. You can strike the right balance on cost and quality by choosing the right model.
Step 2: Connect GitHub
Abstractions needs read access to your repository to pull commit and PR history.
- Go to Integrations in the sidebar
- Click Connect GitHub
- Authorise the GitHub OAuth app — you'll be redirected back automatically
You only need to connect GitHub once per workspace. The connection is shared across all repositories.
Step 3: Connect a repository and send
- Go to Repositories and click Connect repository
- Select the GitHub repository you want to track
- Abstractions starts indexing in the background — this can take a few minutes for large repos
- Once indexing is done, open the repository and go to Newsletters
- Click Generate to create your first draft
- Review the content, make any edits, then click Send
That's it. From here you can configure a recurring schedule, manage subscribers, and build out topics for future newsletters.
Indexing time depends on repository size. A small repo with a few months of history usually finishes in under a minute. Larger repos with years of commits can take a lot more time.
Next steps
- Repositories — configure schedule, subscribers, and indexing settings
- Newsletters — review, edit, and send newsletters
- Topics — queue up subjects for upcoming newsletters