# Introduction to Setups

> A private setup vault plus an engineer that remixes your car setups conversationally. Works with iRacing and Le Mans Ultimate.

**Setups** gives your car setups a home and an engineer. Upload a setup once, and it lives in a private, versioned vault. When you want to change it, you don't edit numbers in a form — you tell your [Race Engineer](/en/docs/race-engineer/introduction) what the car is doing, and it adjusts the right parameters and saves the result as a new version.

> Setups is in **Public Beta** and requires a personal **Plus or Ultra** plan. See [pricing](/en/pricing) for plan details.

> Treat every AI-generated setup as a hypothesis, not a guarantee. Validate it on track before committing the change.

## Who Has Access

- Personal **Plus** and **Ultra** subscribers have full Public Beta access.
- A Team owner also has access when their own linked personal plan is Plus or Ultra.
- A Team seat alone does not grant access. The Basic plan does not grant it either.
- A durable operational admin override may be used by authorized Braking Lab staff; it is not a customer entitlement or a substitute for a paid plan.

If paid access ends or the write gate is temporarily closed, your existing
library does not disappear. You can still list, inspect, compare, download,
organize, edit and delete your setups, and review the existing experiment
history. You can also retire a session association. Uploading, creating
versions, remixing, creating, confirming, correcting or evaluating
associations, and writing shared evidence stay blocked until full access
returns.

## Supported Sims

| Sim | Upload | Remix delivery |
|-----|--------|----------------|
| **Le Mans Ultimate** | `.svm` setup file | A new `.svm` you download and load in the garage |
| **iRacing** | `.htm` or `.html` garage export | A **garage recipe** — the exact changes you apply in-sim |

The two sims work differently for a reason: LMU setup files are plain text, so Braking Lab can write a valid new file. iRacing's native `.sto` format is encrypted by the sim, so nothing outside the game can generate one — instead, your engineer gives you the exact changes and the game writes the file when you hit **Save As**. Read more in [iRacing setups](/en/docs/ai-setups/iracing-setups).

## The Vault

Your setups live at [app.brakinglab.com/ai-setups](https://app.brakinglab.com/ai-setups):

- **Versioned** — every remix, interview or appended file creates a new version linked to its parent. Nothing is overwritten, and every version shows exactly which parameters changed. Each version also carries where it came from: an **upload**, a **remix**, an **interview** derived from an owned version, or a **manual** version — a full LMU `.svm` you re-exported and your engineer appended (see [Le Mans Ultimate setups](/en/docs/ai-setups/lmu-setups)).
- **Organized your way** — give the whole setup one optional session type and up
  to eight reusable personal tags. They help you find it without changing its
  versions or claiming the labels are evidence. See
  [Types and personal tags](/en/docs/ai-setups/types-and-tags).
- **Statused** — Braking Lab derives each setup's status from its current evidence. *Draft* means it has no version with readable values and no confirmed session; *Ready* means at least one version has readable values but no confirmed session; *Tested* means you have confirmed a session driven with it. If that evidence is removed, the status can move back. There is no switch to flip: the status is evidence, not a label.
- **Private** — your vault is personal. No other Braking Lab user can see your setups. See [What stays private](#what-stays-private) below.

### Explain This Parameter

In the parameter table, a parameter that the [Setup Guide](/en/setup-guide)
covers shows an **Explain this parameter** popover. It says what the setting
does at entry, mid-corner and exit and, when one exists, adds a note written for
that specific car. In Le Mans Ultimate it also reminds you that the value is a
position on the car's option dial, not a physical amount. Parameters the guide
does not cover show their plain name.

## What Stays Private

- **Your vault.** Only you can see your setups, their versions and your session
  evidence. There is no public sharing and no team visibility.
- **Your Race Engineer is your own AI client.** It is a third-party client such
  as Claude or ChatGPT, connected to Braking Lab through MCP. The setup values,
  notes and evidence it reads pass through that client's provider, under that
  provider's terms.
- **What Braking Lab stores from a conversation.** Only two milestones of each
  remix: your request (up to 500 characters) and the engineer's rationale (up
  to 1,200 characters). The rest of the conversation stays in your AI client.

Braking Lab does derive parameter observations from uploaded setup files so the
engineer can avoid unsupported guesses. Your complete file and its ownership
stay private. Exact community values are only exposed after at least three
distinct contributors support that car parameter; conflicts are quarantined,
and deleting a setup or account withdraws its observations.

## Three Things Called "Setup" — Which One Is This?

Braking Lab has three surfaces that use the word, and they are genuinely
different products. Worth thirty seconds so you do not go looking in the wrong
place:

| | What it is | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
| **Setups** *(this page)* | A private, versioned vault of your car setups, and an engineer that changes them for you | Personal Plus / Ultra · Public Beta |
| [**Vault (Datapacks)**](/en/docs/features/vault) | A file manager: setup files, telemetry and hardware profiles bundled per car and track, shareable | Everyone |
| [**Setup Guide**](/en/setup-guide) + Setup Coaching | What each setup parameter *does* — a public glossary, and an engineer that explains it against your own car and session | Setup Guide: free · Setup Coaching: Plus / Ultra |

The short version: the **Vault** stores files, the **Setup Guide** teaches, and
**Setups** changes your setup and keeps the history. iRacing's encrypted `.sto`
is not an accepted Setups upload; export the readable `.htm` from the garage
instead. That is what the
[iRacing flow](/en/docs/ai-setups/iracing-setups) is about.

## Requirements

- A **Braking Lab account** on the **Plus** or **Ultra** plan
- An **MCP-compatible AI client** (Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf) connected to your Race Engineer — see [Remixing setups](/en/docs/ai-setups/remix)
- An export from your sim's garage. The Setup Interview can derive an LMU child
  version from an existing owned `.svm`; it never copies a protected reference
  into your vault. See [Setup Interview](/en/docs/ai-setups/setup-interview).
- For session evidence: the [Capture](/en/docs/capture/introduction) desktop
  client. Lap-range associations and the objective comparison need
  **Capture 1.3.8 or later**.

## Getting Started

1. Open [Setups](https://app.brakinglab.com/ai-setups), click **New setup** and upload a setup — the sim is detected automatically.
2. Connect your AI client from the **Connect agent** page.
3. Ask your engineer for the first change: *"Take my Spa GT3 setup and make it more stable on entry."* For LMU, you can also ask the Setup Interview to derive a version for a different exact session, condition or track-type context.

Continue with the flow for your sim: [Le Mans Ultimate](/en/docs/ai-setups/lmu-setups) or [iRacing](/en/docs/ai-setups/iracing-setups).

Then, once you have driven it:

- [Setups and your sessions](/en/docs/ai-setups/sessions) — which setup you drove, confirmed or associated by you, and your verdict on it
- [Measuring a setup change](/en/docs/ai-setups/measuring-changes) — two confirmed runs, compared from your own telemetry
- [Comparing setups](/en/docs/ai-setups/comparing) — two setups side by side, parameter by parameter