The lab is a VS Code-shaped editor with a phone line to real quantum machines. Sixty seconds gets you from nothing to counts.
The 60-second path
- Open something. A fresh account lands on a template picker; pick Bell state. It creates
bell.qasm,main.pyand aREADME.md. Already have projects?⌘Oswitches between them. - Look at the circuit two ways. With
bell.qasmopen, the tab strip shows a Code | Circuit toggle. Circuit is a drawable picture of the same file; press ∿ emulate there to scrub through the ideal statevector. - Price it. The Run rail on the right follows the active file. For a
.qasmit shows Circuit, Machine, Shots and a Cost that comes from the server (POST /runs/quote) — the lab never multiplies numbers itself. - Submit. Press Submit run. On a simulator it goes straight away; on real hardware a dialog named Run on real hardware? repeats the machine, the shots and the exact hold before anything is charged.
- Read the result. The bottom dock (
⌘J) opens on output with a timeline, a histogram and one honest line about credits. Explain this result asks Copilot to narrate it.
The surfaces you will use most
- Explorer (first rail icon): files, folders, right-click actions.
- Search (
⌘⇧F): find and replace across the whole project, previewed before anything is written. Problems (⌘⇧M) in the bottom dock names what will not parse. Chapter: Projects & files. - Library (
⌘K): 48 worked programs on five shelves, the start-here row first — fork onein the lab and it becomes your project. Chapter: Library. - Copilot (last-but-one rail icon): reads and searches the project, sees the machine catalogue, server quotes, this project's runs and the library; proposes edits behind approval cards, runs Python locally. Chapter: Copilot.
- Command palette (
⌘⇧P): everything above by name, plus every guide chapter.
Where to go next
- Writing QASM by hand or in the builder → Run a circuit
- Writing Python → Python in the browser and Notebooks
- Wondering what things cost → Machines & credits
- In a hurry with a team → For hackathons
- Building a product, or measuring devices → For teams & integration, For researchers
Every shortcut in one place: press ⌘/ or read Keyboard shortcuts. Take the 60-second tourin the lab again any time.