New hires land on day one with a dozen tasks spread across HR, IT, and their team — and no single place to see what's done, what's left, and where to get help. The Onboarding Hub solves that: a gamified checklist with progress tracking, milestone badges, and contextual Glean chat on every step.
This recipe builds the hub two ways so you can pick the trade-off that fits your portal — Web SDK for fastest SSO integration, Client Chat when you need full UI control.
Pick a path
Path A embeds Glean's chat UI with the Web SDK. Path B calls Client Chat from your backend and renders the response in your own UI.
- Web SDK
- Platform Chat
Scaffold the project
npx -y tiged@2.12.8 --mode=git gleanwork/glean-cookbook/recipes/onboarding-hub/web-sdk onboarding-hubInstall dependencies
cd onboarding-hub && npm installConfigure the backend and checklist
Enter the user's work email when prompted; tenant discovery writes VITE_GLEAN_BACKEND to .env.local. Replace public/steps.json with the onboarding steps the user supplied and keep every id unique.
cd onboarding-hub && npm run configure -- --email "<work-email>" && cp public/steps.example.json public/steps.jsonRun it
cd onboarding-hub && npm run devVerify
After the user confirms the app is open in their normal signed-in browser, ask them to confirm the configured checklist renders. Have them click Ask about this and verify a cited first-day answer. Do not open or drive their browser.
Scaffold the project
npx -y tiged@2.12.8 --mode=git gleanwork/glean-cookbook/recipes/onboarding-hub/platform-chat onboarding-hubInstall dependencies
cd onboarding-hub && npm installSet credentials
The shipped command discovers the tenant and completes OAuth, with a CHAT-scoped API token fallback. Configure the supplied onboarding steps in ignored .env or a local steps file. The app runs as the signed-in user; there is no act-as.
cd onboarding-hub && npm run login -- --email "<work-email>"Verify
Allow 1–3 minutes. It starts its own server and checks the configured onboarding topics for cited answers plus unsupported-question escalation.
cd onboarding-hub && npm run verifyRun it
cd onboarding-hub && npm start- Wire real HRIS completion events instead of localStorage toggles.
- Add a manager view that shows onboarding progress across the team.
- Scope chat to onboarding-only documents, so a first-week question cannot wander into unrelated content.
What should I do on my first day?
Returns a cited answer drawn from your own onboarding documents, and the checklist reflects steps that actually appear in them rather than a hardcoded list.
How do I set up VPN?
Returns a cited answer from your own IT documentation.
What's our PTO policy?
Returns a cited answer respecting the asker's permissions — the same question from two people with different access should not return content either of them can't see.
Ask about a step your docs don't cover
Client Chat path only: the app offers its escalation affordance rather than inventing a plausible-sounding onboarding step. The Web SDK owns its unsupported-answer experience.
Each of these was run against a live Glean instance on 2026-08-07.