Vestry connects two groups: family principals who own and control their governance record, and advisers who are granted scoped access to it. This guide shows each side where to start and where to go.
Set up your entity register, governance documents, and succession decisions — and track your score.
Go to principal guide ↓ Advisers & partnersConnect with scoped access, view governance data, and build AI agent workflows via the MCP API.
Go to adviser guide ↓The family owns the record. Advisers see only what the principal has granted. Agents read the same scoped view via API.
Everything in Vestry flows from the principal's record. Before advisers can connect and before AI agents can assist, the family's structure, documents, and decisions need to be recorded. This is the ingestion path — the steps that build the clean data layer everything else depends on.
Register at app.getvestry.ai/register with your name and email. Your account is the root of your family's governance record — only you control who sees it and what they can access.
Register → app.getvestry.aiAdd each entity in your family's structure: discretionary trusts, unit trusts, companies, self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), investment entities, and property holdings. For each entity, record its type, trustee or director, ABN, governing document, and last review date.
This is the foundation of the record — the clean, family-owned layer that replaces the scattered picture held across advisers' CRMs.
Open entity register →For each SMSF, record the investment strategy and confirm whether the Binding Death Benefit Nomination (BDBN) is current and when it was last reviewed. For trusts and companies, record the relevant deed or constitution and its last review date. Wills and powers of attorney can be noted at the family level.
You do not need to upload the documents themselves — recording that they exist, who holds them, and when they were last reviewed is sufficient for governance scoring.
Open document register →Vestry walks you through a structured set of succession questions: who controls each entity if the principal is incapacitated, who inherits each asset, and whether the family's succession intentions are documented. Each answer is timestamped and forms part of the permanent governance record.
Answering these questions — not just having the documents — is what moves the succession dimension of the governance score.
Open succession planner →The decision record captures your investment philosophy: a thesis statement, the pillars that support it, and — critically — the disconfirmers you registered when entering a position. Each disconfirmer is a pre-committed question: what would change your mind? Answered before the position was entered, reviewed periodically after.
This is the layer that makes AI assistance substantive. An agent reading a disconfirmer knows not just what you hold but why, and what would change the position.
Open investment thesis →Vestry's guided constitution builder walks you through 29 questions covering your family's values, governance principles, decision-making framework, and wealth transfer intentions. You do not need to complete it in one session — answers are saved as you go and the score reflects your progress.
Open constitution builder →Once your record is in place, you can connect advisers from Settings → Adviser Access. Each connection carries an explicit scope: which entities the adviser can see, whether they have access to your investment thesis, and whether they receive real-time governance event notifications via webhook.
You control the scope at all times. Revoking access removes the connection immediately. Advisers see your governance data — they do not hold it.
Manage adviser access →Advisers and professional firms connect to a principal's Vestry account via an explicit scope grant initiated by the principal. Once connected, you can view governance data through the adviser dashboard, and — on the Professional tier — read and act on that data via the MCP API and webhook events.
Create your adviser account at app.getvestry.ai/adviser/register. Your account is separate from any principal account — it represents your practice, not a family structure. You can manage multiple client connections from a single adviser account.
Register as adviser →A principal connects you from their Settings → Adviser Access page using your registered email. The invitation carries the scope they have chosen: which entities are visible, whether the investment thesis is shared, and whether you receive webhook event notifications.
You cannot self-initiate a connection. The principal holds the grant. This is by design — it is the architecture that makes Vestry data trustworthy as a clean, family-owned record.
Once connected, your adviser dashboard shows each client's current governance score, the dimension breakdown, checklist gaps (documents overdue, BDBNs lapsing, unanswered succession questions), and — within your granted scope — the decision record and constitution progress.
The score is updated in real time as the principal records. You see the current picture, not a reconstruction.
Open adviser dashboard →If you want to build AI agent workflows, integrate Vestry data into your practice management system, or receive real-time event notifications, generate an API key from Settings → Adviser Access in your adviser account.
The key carries the same scope as your adviser connection — it cannot read more than you can see in the dashboard. It is scoped to your connected clients, not all Vestry principals.
Generate API key →The Vestry MCP server exposes ten tools covering client listing, governance scores, checklists, family setup, dashboard summaries, decision briefs, and webhook management. It runs over stdio (Claude Desktop, Claude Code) or SSE (remote agents), and uses your API key for authentication.
The first time your agent uses the key, both you and the principal receive a notification confirming the connection — the audit trail that matters in a family context.
MCP quick-start guide →Vestry fires webhook events when governance state changes: a BDBN lapses, a governance score crosses a threshold, a succession question is answered, or a family constitution section is completed. Subscribe your practice management system or agent orchestration layer to receive these events in real time.
Webhooks are configured via the MCP vestry_create_webhook tool or directly through the API. Each event payload includes the client ID, event type, dimension affected, and the new score.
Set up your entity register, record your governing documents, and track your governance score — all in a record your family owns.
Create your account →Register as an adviser, connect to your clients' accounts, and build AI agent workflows on clean, family-owned data.
Adviser overview Register →