> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trieve.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart

> Quickly start building search, recommendations, and RAG for your application with Trieve

<Steps>
  <Step title="Create an account and dataset">
    Head over to the [Trieve Dashboard](https://dashboard.trieve.ai) to create an account and dataset. With a free account, you can upload up to 1000 chunks and 512 MB of files.

    ![title](https://trieve.b-cdn.net/2024-08-07_14-19.png)
  </Step>

  <Step title="Upload your data">
    You can interact with Trieve in two ways, either by using the UIs or by using the [API](/api-reference/).

    ### Using the UIs

    After creating your dataset on the dashboard, you will be brought to the dataset page. From there, you can upload your data by clicking on the "Upload File" button.

    ![title](https://trieve.b-cdn.net/2024-08-07_14-25.png)

    Our API will automatically chunk your data for you in the background, and upload the resulting chunks into your Trieve dataset.

    ### Using the API

    In order to interact with the API, you will need to grab your dataset ID and API key from the dashboard.

    You can find your dataset ID on the dataset page:
    ![title](https://trieve.b-cdn.net/2024-08-07_14-29.png)

    You can generate an API key on the API keys page:
    ![title](https://trieve.b-cdn.net/2024-08-07_14-30.png)

    You can then use the API to upload your data, by providing the dataset ID and API key in the headers of your request.

    ```
    {
      "Authorization": "<api-key>",
      "TR-Dataset": "<dataset-id>"
    }
    ```

    You can then use our [upload file route](/api-reference/file/upload-file) to upload your files and start interacting with your data.

    <Note>If you would like to manually pass chunks to Trieve, you can use the [create chunks route](/api-reference/chunk/create-or-upsert-chunk-or-chunks) </Note>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Interact with your data">
    You can now interact with your data in a variety of ways. You can search your data, get recommendations, or use RAG to generate responses to user queries using our UIs or API.

    ### Searching

    You can try searching on the sample data you added by visiting [search.trieve.ai](https://search.trieve.ai) and entering a query in the search bar.

    <Note>
      Make sure to select the dataset you uploaded the sample data to using the selector dropdown on the top left.
    </Note>

    ![example-search-ui-query](https://cdn.trieve.ai/docs/example-search-ui-query.png)

    ### RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)

    You can try RAG on the sample data you added by visiting [chat.trieve.ai](https://chat.trieve.ai) and entering a query in the chat box.

    ![trieve-rag-example](https://cdn.trieve.ai/docs/trieve-rag-example.png)
  </Step>
</Steps>