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Sign In and Start Prompting: Harvey User Quick Start Part 1

Learn to complete a real task in Harvey and understand the core patterns you’ll use every day.

Last updated: Jan 15, 2026

Guide for: New users

Time to complete: ~10–15 minutes

Overview

This quick start helps you get started in Harvey by guiding you through your first sign-in and your first prompt in Assistant.

Assistant is where you ask questions, analyze small document sets, and draft work product with source-backed answers.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have completed a real task in Harvey and produced a result you can review and trust.

Before You Start

Prepare a real task you want to complete in Harvey—for example:

  • Summarizing or reviewing a contract clause
  • Answering a legal or regulatory question
  • Drafting a short client-facing email or memo

You’ll use this task as you work through the steps below.

Important: If your organization joined Harvey after January 11, 2026, you have first access to our new homepage. Refer to Homepage Refresh on our Help Center for guidance on the visual updates as needed.

Step 1 - Sign In and Set Your Profile

Sign in to set your preferences so Harvey matches your tone, terminology, and localization.

Checklist

☐ Confirm with your organization’s admin which URL should be used to sign into Harvey. Your URL may be different than the region you are located in.

☐ Sign in via SSO or a one-time email code (depending on your organization).

☐ Open Settings > Profile from Harvey's sidebar menu and set your profession, practice areas, location, and preferred language.

Note: You can override tone or jurisdiction in your prompt (for example, 'write in UK English' or 'analyze under New York law’).

Learn more: Login Guide and How to Set Up Your User Profile (Help Center)

Step 2 - Write Your First Prompt

There are two main methods of analysis in Harvey: threads and review tables.

  1. Threads deliver quick, focused insights from a few documents.
  2. Review tables extract structured data across large document sets.

Let’s start with creating a thread from a prompt and a small set of documents.

2.A. Draft Your Prompt

Prompts should be written as though you’re communicating to a colleague. Describe the task you want Harvey to perform in natural language.

Checklist

☐ On the homepage, type your question or drafting request in the text box. Do not run the prompt yet.

Example: “Summarize the termination provisions in this agreement and flag any unusual notice periods.”

2.B. Add Context

Important: Adding context, such as internal files or legal data sources, is essential to receive accurate, relevant results from Harvey. Without this context, Harvey relies on general training data, which may not reflect your specific information or sources.

Checklist

☐ Click Files if you have documents to upload.

☐ Click Sources if you want to select external knowledge sources to anchor Harvey’s answer (for example, web search for real-time information from across the internet or a legal database like LexisNexis®).

Tip: Use regional legal sources when you need jurisdiction-specific answers with citations.

Notes:

  • If you do not see a source you need, ask your admin about enabling it for your workspace.
  • You can select up to 2 forms of context for most prompts (e.g. file uploads and web search or EDGAR and web search).

Learn more: Knowledge Sources (Help Center)

2.C. Improve the Prompt

Refine what you’re asking for.

A successful prompt includes three key components:

  1. Request: What you want done
  2. Context: What matters (jurisdiction, parties, purpose, constraints)
  3. Output: Format + audience + depth (bullets, table, memo, length, tone)

Prompt example: "Summarize the indemnity clause of the attached vendor SaaS agreement and focus on customer risk. Format the output in bullets and 3 negotiation points."

Checklist

☐ Use clear, specific language to phrase your prompt as a question or request.

☐ Inform Harvey of the circumstances surrounding your request.

☐ Specify the output format.

☐ Use the Improve option in the text box to refine your prompt.

Learn more: Prompt Writing Techniques (Help Center)

2.D. Ask Harvey and Review Citations

Checklist

☐ Click Ask Harvey to run the prompt.

☐ Review citations from the Sources panel on the right. Harvey’s answer should clearly reflect the source you selected.

2.E. Ask Follow-Ups

Treat the thread as a working space.

  • Run a suggested follow-up
  • Narrow or expand scope
  • Request edits or alternatives
  • Upload a few more files for additional context and Q&A

Learn more: Getting Started with Assistant (Help Center)

Use follow-ups to break down multi-task prompts.

Instead of overloading Assistant in a single prompt, start with an initial question using a limited set of documents. Follow up with another question and a few more documents as needed to reach the desired output.

What’s Next

Now that you know how to:

  • Start threads in Assistant
  • Ground outputs with files and sources

You’re ready to advance to: Reuse and Standardize Your Work: Harvey User Quick Start Part 2

Need Help?

  • Ask Harvey Guide questions on how to use or troubleshoot a feature directly within the product. You can also ask for tips on how to accomplish a task with Harvey. Learn more: Harvey Guide (Help Center)
  • If something looks missing, confirm with your admin that the feature or source is enabled for your role
  • Make sure you’re using the correct regional login URL

Reuse and Standardize Your Work: Harvey User Quick Start Part 2

Learn to save time by reusing good work and standardizing repeatable tasks.

Work with Large Document Sets: Harvey User Quick Start Part 3

Learn how to analyze a set of documents together in Vault and choose the best way to review them.

Configure Your Workspace: Harvey Admin Quick Start Part 1

Learn to set up Harvey for your organization.

Use Harvey in Microsoft: Harvey User Quick Start Part 4

Learn to leverage Harvey in Microsoft Word and Outlook.

Customize Resources for Your Workspace: Harvey Admin Quick Start Part 2

Learn to customize your workspace resources with playbooks, workflows, and knowledge bases.