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Onboarding wizard#

The onboarding wizard appears the first time you launch Lens Desktop after signing in. It guides you through connecting cloud Kubernetes environments, syncing local kubeconfigs, configuring an AI provider for Lens Prism, and enabling the Lens MCP Server. The wizard has four steps, shown in a two-panel layout: the left panel lists all four steps with the current one highlighted, and the right panel shows the active step. Step progress appears as Steps to start X/4 at the top of the left panel.

Navigation between steps is done with Next and Back at the bottom of the right panel. The final step replaces Next with Go to Lens, which closes the wizard. Close the wizard at any time by clicking the X in the top-right corner.

Tip

To reopen the wizard later, select Help > Welcome from the top menu to open the Welcome Page, then click Open Onboarding Wizard... under Start.

Prerequisites#

Step 1: Kubernetes Environments#

The first step connects cloud-based Kubernetes environments through the built-in native integrations. The step shows two sections: Azure AKS and AWS EKS. Each section displays a connection status indicator and a single button to start the account-connection flow.

Azure AKS#

Click Add Azure Account to start the Azure authentication flow. Lens Desktop opens a browser-based OAuth flow to authenticate with your Azure account and then discovers AKS clusters across your Azure subscriptions.

For detailed authentication options, see Add Azure AKS clusters.

AWS EKS#

Click Add AWS Account to start the AWS authentication flow. Lens Desktop discovers EKS clusters across your AWS accounts using the credentials you supply.

For detailed authentication options (SSO, Access Key, IAM Role), see Add AWS EKS clusters.

Tip

You do not need to connect both providers during the wizard. Connect only what you need now and add the rest later from Preferences > Integrations.

Click Next to continue. This step has no Skip or Back button — it is the first step and is optional to populate.

Step 2: Local Kubeconfigs#

The second step connects local kubeconfig files to Lens Desktop.

The step shows a Local Kubeconfigs section with a connection status (Not Connected or Connected) and a table with three columns: Path, Type, and Clusters. By default, Lens Desktop watches ~/.kube (on macOS and Linux) or %USERPROFILE%\.kube (on Windows).

  • Watch files & folders — open a file and folder picker to add additional kubeconfig paths that Lens Desktop should watch.
  • Manually add kubeconfig — open a modal to paste kubeconfig content directly instead of pointing to a file on disk.

Info

Lens Desktop watches your kubeconfig files in real time. Any change to a watched file is picked up automatically without restarting Lens.

For the full local-cluster workflow (pasting kubeconfigs, importing from filesystem, syncing from a custom location), see Add a local cluster.

Click Next to continue or Back to return to the previous step.

Step 3: AI LLM Providers#

The third step configures an AI provider for Lens Prism.

The step shows a Prism AI LLM Providers section with a connection status (Not Connected or Connected) and an Add provider button. A provider is required for Prism to function — Prism works with providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Click Add provider to open a dialog where you select a provider type and enter its credentials. For the complete list of provider types and required fields, see How to configure AI providers.

Tip

Generate or retrieve your API key from your provider's console before starting this step:

Info

All communication happens directly between your machine and the selected provider. Lens Desktop does not route or store your prompts.

Click Next to continue or Back to return to the previous step.

Step 4: MCP Server#

The final step enables the Lens MCP Server and provides the configuration snippet for your MCP client.

The step shows a header Enable Lens MCP Server with a toggle. Turn the toggle on to expose Lens capabilities to AI agents and tools through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The server works with Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and other MCP-compatible clients.

Expand Configure your MCP client to reveal the configuration snippet. Lens Desktop generates the snippet with the absolute path to the bundled Lens CLI, so your MCP client can launch the server without relying on your shell PATH. An example of the generated snippet looks like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lens": {
      "command": "/Applications/Lens.app/Contents/Resources/cli/bin/lens-cli-...",
      "args": ["mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Click the copy icon next to the snippet to copy it, then paste it into your MCP client configuration (for example, .mcp.json in your project root). You may need to restart your MCP client for the change to take effect.

Info

The exact path in the command field differs per platform and installation location. Always copy the snippet shown in the wizard rather than typing the path manually.

For a full walkthrough, see Get started with Lens MCP Server.

Click Go to Lens to close the wizard, or Back to return to the previous step. The wizard has no Finish or Skip button on this step; Go to Lens is the exit action regardless of whether you copy the snippet.

Verify the setup#

After the wizard closes, confirm that your configuration is active:

  1. Open the Catalog in the left sidebar. Your connected clusters appear in the cluster list.
  2. Open Lens Prism and send a test prompt to verify the AI provider is working.

Completed

Your clusters appear in the Catalog and Lens Prism is ready to use.

Change settings later#

Modify cluster connections, AI provider settings, and the MCP Server toggle at any time from Preferences > Integrations.

Next steps#