Documentation/Getting Started

Getting Started

Cograph continuously maps your organization's knowledge from the signals your team produces — code commits, documents, Slack conversations. This guide walks you through setup in four steps.

What is Cograph?

Cograph is a knowledge management platform built around three core ideas:

1

Continuous Knowledge Mapping

Rather than asking employees to document what they know, Cograph builds a knowledge graph automatically from existing signals: GitHub commits, Google Docs, Slack threads, and calendar patterns. The graph updates daily.

2

Risk-Aware Departure Management

When an employee leaves, Cograph assesses the knowledge risk — which topics are at risk, who holds unique knowledge, and who can take over. It guides structured knowledge transfer with targeted capture workflows.

3

AI-Native Interface

The MCP server exposes the knowledge graph to any AI assistant. Ask Claude, GPT-4, or any MCP-compatible agent to query expertise, find successors, and run offboarding workflows in natural language.

Account Setup

Cograph is currently in private beta. Contact us to request early access for your organization.

Once your organization is provisioned:

  1. Sign in at app.cograph.com with your work email
  2. Complete your organization profile — set your company name, team size, and primary timezone
  3. Invite your admin team from Settings → Team Members
  4. Review the default role permissions (Admin, Manager, Employee)

Roles & Permissions

RoleCan do
AdminFull access — manage integrations, initiate departures, view all reports, manage users
ManagerManage departures for direct reports, view risk reports, assign successors
EmployeeView own departure details, respond to knowledge capture requests

Connect Integrations

Cograph builds the knowledge graph from your existing tools. Connect at least one integration to start building your graph. You can add more later.

Google WorkspaceRecommended first

Syncs your employee directory, org chart, and Google Docs. Provides document authorship signals for expertise scoring.

Employee directoryDocument ownershipOrg structure
Slack

Analyzes public channel messages to identify collaboration patterns, topic expertise, and who-knows-who.

Collaboration networksTopic signalsGo-to person patterns
GitHub

Maps code ownership by commit history. Identifies subject matter experts per repository, file, and topic area.

Code ownershipCommit patternsPR collaboration

To connect an integration, go to Settings → Integrations and click Connect next to the integration. You'll be redirected through the provider's OAuth flow and returned to Cograph. The initial sync takes 10–30 minutes depending on your organization size.

Tip: Connect Google Workspace first. It provides the employee directory that links signals from Slack and GitHub to specific people.

Understanding the Knowledge Graph

After integration sync completes, Cograph builds your knowledge graph. You can explore it from Knowledge Graph in the sidebar.

The graph contains three types of nodes:

Employees — Everyone in your directory, linked to their expertise and collaborators
Topics — Knowledge areas derived from code, documents, and conversations (e.g., "API Authentication", "Payment Processing")
Documents & Repos — Source artifacts with ownership relationships back to employees

Start Your First Departure

Once you have at least one integration connected, you can initiate a departure workflow.

  1. Navigate to Departures in the sidebar
  2. Click New Departure and select the departing employee
  3. Set the departure date
  4. Cograph automatically runs a risk assessment — this takes 1–2 minutes
  5. Review the risk report: overall score, critical knowledge areas, and successor recommendations
  6. Create knowledge capture tasks for high-priority items
  7. Assign successors to each knowledge area

Pro tip: Install the MCP server to run offboarding workflows directly from your AI assistant. The offboarding-kickoff prompt generates a complete briefing in one step.

Next Steps