Last Update: January/2026
Hey Miner, welcome to GLS! This document is here to guide you through your first encounter with Arda. But you may ask - what is Arda?
Arda is the world in Tolkien's legendarium — and it's also the name of our entire GLS system.
You'll quickly notice that GLS is packed with Tolkien references. You'll get used seeing pieces of software named as Gandalf, Bombadil, Saruman, or Smaug. To help you navigate, we’ve prepared a special glosarry with some of the terminology you’ll encounter.
Remember that this is a living document, which means it may become outdated as things evolve. If you spot anything broken, unclear, or missing, feel free to DM @fernando.lisboa or create a brand new gist based on this one. Most importantly: Don’t hesitate to ask for help — Arda is a complex system, and it’s totally normal to run into issues. In fact, some errors are so common, we’ve documented them for you.
See ya, and good luck on your journey through Arda! 🧙♂️
Once you receive your @glssolutions.us/ @gls.ai account, follow these steps:
- Access M365
- Access Slack through the M365 account
- Access ConductorOne through the M365 account and request access to the following apps:
- 1Password
- Arda (Development)
- Arda (Staging)
- Argo (Staging): Role => Read Only
- if Argo doesn't appear, talk to @gui (Guilherme Hyppolito)
- Datadog: Role => Session Replay Viewer
- Figma: Role => Viewer
- Linear: Role => User, Team => Arda
- Modern Treasury: Role => Sandbox Access
- Whimsical: Role => Viewer
- Sign to 1Password using email invitation
- Install chrome extension (optional)
- Install desktop application (WSL users, please check this section)
- Authorize the app using web application
- Install 1Password CLI
- Associate the CLI using desktop application
- Configure GitHub:
- Sign in to Github through M365
- Visit Settings/Email
- Link your e-mail
[your.name]@glssolutions.us - Verify the account through your inbox mail (M365 Outlook)
- Visit https://github.com/settings/notifications
- Add Custom Routing:
glssolutions ➝ [your.name]@glssolutions.us
- Add Custom Routing:
- Visit https://github.com/settings/emails
- Make sure that
Keep my email addresses privateoption is turned off, so you can merge your PRs using the @glssolutions.us email
- Make sure that
- Create SSH Key locally
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 - Configure your new SSH Key in
~/.ssh/configusing Github SSH configuration snippet. - Visit https://github.com/settings/keys
- Click New SSH Key
- Add an Authentication Key
- Title = you can choose, but maybe GLS is a good one
- Key type = Authentication Key
- Key = paste your .pub key from
~/.ssh - After creation, click on configure SSO ➝ glssolutions
- Add Signing Key
- Title = you can choose, but maybe GLS is a good one
- Key type = Signing Key
- Key = paste your .pub key from
~/.ssh - After creation, configure Git to sign commits using your new SSH Key (see on Github SSH configuration)
- Add an Authentication Key
- Click New SSH Key
- Setup Arda following the README
- Disclaimer: Arda setup tends to take some time, and there are some common issues that everyone usually encounters. Please make sure to check the troubleshooting steps in the README, and don’t hesitate to ask for help if you get stuck.
- Complete Drata compliance process (ask @gui if you need any help). (Ubuntu users, please check here)
- To access the staging environment, ask @gui (Guilherme Hyppolito) to add new user to service users JSON list
- If you're using VSCode/Cursor, install Aikido extension (ask @gui if you encouter trouble)
The following Github steps must be completed after following the project README's instructions. Don't forget to come back here once you're done!
- After the project runs successfully using
saruman up, an email will be sent to you through the local email platform (localhost:1080) - Upon accessing the email, you will find a link to validate your account on the platform.
- Once the account is validated, you can log in to the platform by adding the
?show_login=trueflag to the URL, where a new button will be displayed.
Create ~/.ssh/config and replace gls_ed25519 with your SSH Key file name:
Host github.com
IgnoreUnknown AddKeysToAgent,UseKeychain
AddKeysToAgent yes
UseKeychain yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/gls_ed25519
Open your global .gitconfig and add these extra configurations. Don't forget to replace gls_ed25519 with your actual SSH Key file name:
[user]
signingkey = ~/.ssh/gls_ed25519.pub
[gpg]
format = ssh
[commit]
gpgsign = true
Drata is required to access some of GLS's sensitive services. If you're working on Ubuntu, these articles may help you with your disk encryption:
- Tutorial: Encrypting an existing root partition in Ubuntu with dm-crypt and LUKS
- Common Bug: Unlock LUKS encrypted Debian root with key file on boot partition
When installing on WSL, everything should be installed inside Ubuntu. Exceptions:
- Twingate
- 1Password
These are installed on Windows, but accessed from Ubuntu. You can run Docker via Docker Desktop on Windows, while keeping your codebase inside Ubuntu.
- [video] Concept of business loans, the role of private lenders, and the process of loan origination and investment in platform. Passcode:
uDm#D%F4
Integrate the 1Password CLI on WSL
If you're using WSL on Windows, during the setup of Arda repo, you will need to run the command:
This will generate an error because the 1Password installation is not available in the WSL environment. To solve this interoperability issue, consider making this extra configuration. ( This prevents having two instances of 1Password running simultaneously between Windows and WSL).
Step 1: Install 1Password CLI
First, open a Windows PowerShell terminal as an administrator and run the following command to install the 1Password CLI using winget:
Check the installation by running the following command:
This step will integrate your 1Password CLI with 1Password Desktop to be used via PowerShell
Step 2: Locate the 1Password CLI Executable
After installation, you need to find the path to the
op.exeexecutable. Still in PowerShell, you can use the following command to search for it:Get-Command op | Select-Object -ExpandProperty SourceYou will see something like:
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Links\op.exeStep 3: Add a Symbolic Link
Open the WSL console, adjust the path as needed (dont forget the hard-disk - if needed) and create the symbolic link with the command:
sudo ln -s "/mnt/c/Users/<USERNAME>/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WinGet/Links/op.exe" /usr/local/bin/opStep 4: Test it!
Test the shortcut by running the following command in your WSL console: