> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.ellaworks.ai/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.ellaworks.ai/_mcp/server.

# Ellaworks Control Plane (ECP) Introduction

Ellaworks Control Plane (ECP) brings governance & discipline to AI prompt development & management, the same way Cargo, PNPM and Terraform transformed code & infrastructure.

## What is ECP?

ECP provides a complete lifecycle management for deploying and managing AI prompts at scale. Instead of copying and pasting prompts across projects, ECP lets you treat prompts as versioned, composable artifacts with strict validation and one-command deployment.

#### Build

Author modular prompts with reusable components, JSON Schema I/O contracts, and environment-aware preprocessors.

#### Version

Every prompt is semantically versioned with lockfile support for reproducible builds and safe rollbacks.

#### Deploy

Push validated agents to supported runtimes — Vapi, Retell, ElevenLabs, Telnyx and AWS Bedrock Agents — from the app or with a single CLI command.

## Core Concepts

### Prompt Registries

Registries are collections of versioned prompt artifacts scoped to an organization. Registries can be **public** (accessible without authentication) or **private** (restricted to organization members and API keys).

### Agents

Agents are deployable AI configurations that combine prompts with provider settings, tool references, and environment-specific configuration. Agents can be deployed to multiple environments and provider runtimes.

### Environments

Environments (e.g. `dev`, `test`, `prod`) let you manage provider credentials and configuration separately from your prompt logic. Each environment can have its own secrets and provider settings.

### Tools

Tools are reusable function definitions that agents can invoke. Define a tool once and reference it across multiple agents and prompts.

## Getting Started

#### Create an account

Sign up at [app.ellaworks.ai](https://app.ellaworks.ai/auth/login) and create your organization. See [Creating an Account](/creating-an-account) for a walkthrough.

#### Generate an API key

Navigate to **Settings → API Keys** to create an API key for programmatic access. See [API Keys](/api-keys) for details.

#### Make your first API call

Use the API reference to explore available endpoints. Authenticate with the `X-API-Key` header (or `Authorization: Bearer <key>`):

```bash
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://app.ellaworks.ai/api/environments?orgSlug=your-org"
```

## Next Steps

#### [Deploying Agents](/deploying-agents)

Deploy agents to Vapi, Retell, ElevenLabs, Telnyx and AWS Bedrock Agents

#### [Knowledge Bases](/knowledge-bases)

Give agents searchable documents to ground their answers

#### [Agent Exchange (AGX)](/agx)

Let agents message and hand off tasks to agents in other organizations

#### [API Keys](/api-keys)

Create and manage API keys for programmatic access

#### [API Reference](/api-reference)

Explore the full API with interactive documentation