---
title: Create an account
description: Sign up for shebang with an email, a password, and a handle — or continue with Google or GitHub.
---

# Create an account

Every shebang service — sherpage, sherserve, sherlink, sherbase — shares
one account, managed by sherlock, the platform's own identity provider.

## Sign up

Go to [dash.shebang.pro/signup](https://dash.shebang.pro/signup) and
provide:

- **A handle** — your public username on the platform.
- **An email address.**
- **A password** — at least 8 characters.

Submit the form and shebang emails you a 6-digit code — not a
confirmation link. Enter it on the verification page that follows to
finish creating your account.

## Or use a provider

The sign-up page also offers **continue with Google** and **continue
with GitHub**. Either one skips the password and the email code
entirely — you land in the same account model with no separate step.

Neither provider asks for a handle directly, but shebang tries to derive
one from what the provider sends back — your Google display name or
GitHub login, lowercased, with anything outside `a-z0-9` collapsed to a
single underscore and the result cut to 20 characters. If that derived
handle is already taken or reserved, shebang tries again with a 2- to
4-digit numeric suffix appended (`braven_chiam42`) before falling back
further. When nothing usable comes back at all, you get a random
`user_xxxxxx` handle instead.
Either way, you can pick a different handle afterward from account
settings. See [handles](/sherlock/handles) for the rules a handle has to
follow either way.

## What you get immediately

Signing up creates:

- A sherlock identity, usable everywhere shebang — including any
  third-party app that adds "Sign in with sherlock."
- A project named and slugged `default`, ready to hold your first page,
  file, link, or database.

A new account can't use any of these services yet, though — see
[activation](/getting-started/activation) for the one step every
account needs before its first real call.

You can add two-factor authentication from your account settings at any
time afterward; it isn't required to get started.

## Next

[Projects](/getting-started/projects) — what a project is, and when to
make a second one.