Sites
A Site is a custom portal: a navigational menu of pages, each a dashboard of widgets, a canvas page laid out by code Nova writes, or a folder of docs. A Service Portal is a typical example — a menu with items like "All Support Items," "Assigned to Me," "Report an Issue," or "Service Ticket Statistics," each opening its own dashboard-style page, alongside a "Help" page that opens the documentation folder your team already writes in.
Terminology: the Site is the whole thing (menu + main view); the Menu/sidebar is where you navigate between pages; the Main view is a page's own content area. Switch between sites via the site switcher (click the site name, top-left).
Managing sites
Sites in the main menu lists the sites available to you; + creates a new one (with a default placeholder page).
Configuring a site (from within it: ⋯ → Configure; from the overview: hover the card → the cogwheel icon) requires Admin or Owner on that site, and covers: site name, logo, layout, pages, and appearance.
Layout
Controls where the menu sits, or whether it shows at all:
- Left — best for many pages/folders needing quick access.
- Top — keeps the menu subtle, focus on the current page.
- No menu — a single-purpose dashboard; only the homepage (or the first page, if none is set as homepage) is shown, even if the site has multiple pages.
Pages
A site's pages are listed under Pages in configuration, where + adds one. A page is one of three kinds, and you choose which as you add it:
- Dashboard page — a grid you fill with widgets: the choice for dashboards, lists and forms.
- Canvas page — a page whose layout is code, usually written by Nova: headings, text, cards and your widgets arranged however the page needs. See Canvas pages.
- Docs page — shows one folder from Docs, with its folder tree, its lists, and the docs themselves, all inside the site's menu and colors.
Folders group pages in the menu; they aren't pages themselves and open nothing of their own.
A docs page is connected to a folder after it's added: select the page under Pages, then pick the folder on the page itself. Until you do, the page says so instead of showing docs. Only folders that already exist can be picked, so create the folder in Docs first if there isn't one yet.
What a docs page shows is the same Docs you'd get outside the site, scoped to that folder: the folders beneath it, My Docs, Shared with me, Private and Archived narrowed to its contents, and docs opened to read or write. Who can read and write each doc doesn't change — a doc's own sharing still decides, exactly as it does in Docs.
Docs are for people with workspace access. External site users can't open a docs page, and it is hidden from their menu, so a site shared outside your organization should not rely on one to carry information those readers need.
Canvas pages
A canvas page is laid out by its own code instead of the widget grid, so it can look like a designed page rather than a set of tiles: a heading with a short introduction, numbers and charts side by side, cards that link to other pages of the site, and your widgets placed where they belong among them. Canvas pages are rolling out gradually and may not be available in every workspace yet.
Adding one. Under Pages, + → Add canvas page adds an empty one. To start from a page you already have, open a dashboard page's ⋯ menu and choose Clone to Canvas: Starhive adds a canvas page right after it, named after it with "(canvas)" at the end, with copies of its widgets laid out as the grid had them. The dashboard page stays as it was. A canvas page counts toward your plan's page and widget limits like any other.
Building it with Nova. Where Nova is available in site configuration, the panel on the right switches between Nova and Configure. In Nova, describe the page — what it's for and what it should show — and Nova writes it into the draft while you watch. Clicking a widget on the page selects it, and your next message to Nova is about that widget; in Configure, the same click opens the widget's settings instead. A new site created with Nova can get a canvas page as its home page.
Preview and Code. While configuring, a canvas page switches between Preview, the page as it stands in your draft, and Code, the code that lays it out. To change the code by hand, choose Edit under Code, then Save and run. Like every change made while configuring, it goes into the draft: readers see it once you Publish. This switch is part of configuration and isn't shown in the site's Preview mode.
Widgets on a canvas page. The code places each widget by its widget key, a short name made
of lower-case words joined by hyphens, such as open-incidents. The Page widgets tab in
configuration lists the page's widgets with their keys, and Add widget adds one. A widget
without a key offers Suggest, which makes one from the widget's name; once a key is saved, the
copy icon beside it copies the line that places the widget, ready to paste into the code.
What the code can read. Widgets on a canvas page are the same widgets as on a dashboard page, with the same configuration, and the page's code reaches your data only through them. Besides showing a widget, the code can read the records a widget's query finds — up to 200 at a time, with their field values, including fields the widget itself doesn't display — to build its own numbers, lists or cards. The widget's query and the permissions of the person viewing the page always apply: the code can narrow what it reads or shows (to what a reader picked on the page, for example), but never widen it. Before sharing a canvas page, consider every field of the types its widgets read, not only the columns the widgets show.
When a page doesn't render. If the code has a mistake, the page shows what went wrong in a sentence, with the technical details under Show details. While configuring, Fix with Nova hands the problem to Nova, and while Nova is still working on the site, a page caught between two of its changes says that Nova is building it instead; that clears when Nova is done. Readers see the published page, so for them a page that doesn't render is a real error to fix in configuration.
Links out of the site. A link on a canvas page that leads outside the site asks the reader first, with Open link or Stay.
Appearance
Custom colors for Menu Background, Menu Text, Page Background, Page Text, Widget Background, and Widget Text (the latter two are defaults for widgets that don't set their own).
Custom domains
A site can be served from a custom domain instead of the default platform domain — requires Admin or Owner, plus the ability to manage DNS for that domain. After adding one, it shows as Pending until DNS propagates (usually minutes, sometimes hours for a newly registered domain) — no action needed while pending. A failure usually means the DNS record hasn't propagated yet, or has a typo.
Domain limits depend on subscription plan: Starter/Essential allow 2, Scale allows 4.
Preview mode
Preview a site before publishing, as yourself or as an external user. Preview is read-only — you can navigate every page and interact with widgets, but nothing that would mutate data is allowed.
Publishing
Editing a site creates a draft automatically. Publish replaces the live version with your draft; Discard removes the draft and reverts to what's already published. Re-entering configuration loads any existing draft.
Access control
A site is Open (everyone in the workspace can manage the app and its permissions, and edit objects) or Restricted (only added users can view or edit it) — the same Open/Restricted model used by Spaces and Docs.
Manage Users
Search/filter by name or email, role (Owner/Admin/Member), or type (Internal — also has workspace access; External — site-only access; Invited — hasn't accepted yet).
A default access role (No Access, Owner, Admin, Member) applies to workspace members automatically. Owners and Admins can change a user's role, resend a pending invite, or remove access. New users are added via an invite field — pick workspace members, or enter external email addresses — with a role assigned alongside.
Export users downloads the user list as a CSV file with each user's name, email address, and role, for example to email everyone who uses the site. The export follows the current search and filters, so narrow the list first to export only part of it. Groups with access aren't included.
Cloning and deleting
Clone copies a site along with all its content (pages, folders, widgets, and the code of its canvas pages) and styling. A cloned docs page points at the same folder as the original — cloning a site copies the site, not the docs. To delete, you must be the site's owner: ⋯ → trash icon, then confirm by typing the site's name.