Clew

How to set up user onboarding in a Replit app without a developer

A complete first-session flow in a Replit app — welcome, guided first action, getting-started list — built from three Clew items that follow the user through the app instead of one long tour on page load.

Time
● 40 minutes
Price
Tours free · rest 14-day trial
Who does it
You and Replit Agent

Example: user onboarding in a Replit app

A Replit booking app for a coworking space. Welcome modal on /bookings, a calendar tour on /bookings/calendar, and a checklist on the second visit: add payment details in your billing provider, save a favorite desk.

The product tour part is free on the Free plan (up to 3 published). The Modal, Checklist and audience rules are part of Pro: every new account gets a 14-day trial with everything included, no card. When the trial ends nothing is deleted and published items keep showing.

How to set up user onboarding in a Replit app, step by step

  1. Step 01

    Copy your Clew snippet

    Create a free account (or sign in), add your site and open Admin → Overview. Click the line in the “No signal from the widget yet.” card to copy it — it carries your real site key instead of the placeholder.

    <!-- Clew: replace PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY with the site key from Admin > Overview -->
    <script src="https://tryclew.io/widget/PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY.js" async></script>
    Clew admin Overview with the embed line and a masked site key (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 1 · schematic illustration
  2. Step 02

    Open the Repl with Agent or Assistant

    Open your app in Replit and start Agent (or Assistant). Replit templates differ, so let it find the root template.

    A code workspace with the AI assistant panel open (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 2 · schematic illustration
  3. Step 03

    Send the prompt with your key

    Replace PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY with your key and send the prompt below.

    Add the Clew onboarding widget to this app.
    
    Insert this exact tag once so it loads on every page, including after client-side route changes:
    <script src="https://tryclew.io/widget/PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY.js" async></script>
    
    This is a Replit project: find the HTML template or root layout that every page uses (index.html, a server-rendered layout or the framework root) and put the tag right before </head>.
    
    After sign-in, call Clew.identify() with non-personal properties as strings that tell a new user from an existing one — for example { signup_source: "web", onboarded: "false", role: "owner" } — and update onboarded to "true" when the user completes the key action. If the widget may not have loaded yet, first define the queue stub: window.TutorKit = window.TutorKit || { q: [], identify: function (p) { this.q.push(["identify", p]); } }; then call window.TutorKit.identify(...). Also add data-tour attributes to the main navigation and the primary create button. Never pass names or emails.
    
    Rules:
    - Use the script URL exactly as given. Do not download it, bundle it or install an npm package.
    - If the project sets a Content-Security-Policy, allow https://tryclew.io in script-src and connect-src.
    - Change nothing else and show me the diff.
    AI chat with the Clew prompt in the message box (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 3 · schematic illustration
  4. Step 04

    Review and redeploy

    Check the changed files, then redeploy from Deployments. The workspace webview is a dev server; users see the deployment.

    Code diff with one script line added to the root template (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 4 · schematic illustration
  5. Step 05

    Create the three onboarding items

    In Clew create three items in Flows: a Modal window with one welcome sentence and a link to the key screen; a Step-by-step tooltips tour of 3–4 steps on that screen, built with Edit on your site and Pick element; and a Onboarding checklist with the remaining setup tasks.

    A welcome popup, a tour tooltip and a checklist panel shown as three stages of user onboarding (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 5 · schematic illustration
  6. Step 06

    Choose where, when and for whom it shows

    In the same editor, set Where to show (page URL), When to show, Audience targeting and Frequency. These are the settings of the example above:

    SettingValue
    Welcome popup
    FormatModal window
    Where to show (page URL)Exact path /bookings
    When to showRight on page load
    Audience targetingNo rules — everyone who opens the page
    FrequencyOnce per visitor
    Product tour
    FormatStep-by-step tooltips
    Where to show (page URL)Section by prefix /bookings/calendar
    When to showRight on page load
    Audience targetingNo rules — everyone who opens the page
    FrequencyOnce per visitor
    Checklist
    FormatOnboarding checklist
    Where to show (page URL)Section by prefix /bookings
    When to showOn the Nth visit: 2
    Audience targetingNo rules — everyone who opens the page
    FrequencyOnce per visitor
    Clew tour editor with the format, page URL rule, trigger and audience rule fields (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 6 · schematic illustration
  7. Step 07

    Publish and check it on the live site

    Set Status to Published and save. Open the page in a private window — Clew remembers who has already seen a “once” item, so your usual browser may skip it. Views, completions and drop-offs appear in the tour stats.

    Clew admin Overview with the green “Widget is live” card (user onboarding in a Replit app)
    Step 7 · schematic illustration

Pitfalls: user onboarding in a Replit app

Dev URL vs deployment

The .replit.dev preview and the deployed .replit.app or custom domain are different sites for visitors. Paths match, so rules work on both, but only the deployment reaches users.

Server-rendered templates

Express or Flask apps may have several templates. If the user onboarding shows on some pages only, ask Agent to put the tag in the shared base template.

The welcome popup must not fire for existing users

“Once per visitor” is per browser: an old customer on a new laptop is a new visitor. If your app knows the user, add a rule on a property like onboarded so long-time users skip the welcome.

Don’t start everything on one page

If the popup, the tour and the checklist all match the same URL, only one starts and the others wait. Give each item its own page or trigger, as in the table above.

Questions and answers

Is there a limit on visitors?

No. Plans limit sites, seats and published items, not visitors.

Do I need a paid Replit plan?

You need whatever plan your deployment uses; Clew adds nothing to it — the script is loaded from Clew’s servers.

Which parts are free?

Tours are free on the Free plan. The welcome popup, the checklist and audience rules are in Pro; the 14-day trial includes them all, no card.

How long does it take?

About forty minutes for a first version: ten for the popup, twenty for the tour, ten for the checklist. Then improve by the funnel.

One line on your site — then tours, tooltips and checklists without releases.

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Product tours, popups and onboarding in the age of AI

7 patterns with step counts, copy rules and what to measure, what AI changes, and a checklist before you publish. PDF, 2 pages. What is inside →