diff --git a/backend/app/rest/api/middleware.go b/backend/app/rest/api/middleware.go
index 77185eb1..59d53eac 100644
--- a/backend/app/rest/api/middleware.go
+++ b/backend/app/rest/api/middleware.go
@@ -14,13 +14,14 @@ import (
 	"time"
 
 	"github.com/go-chi/chi/middleware"
-
 	"github.com/umputun/remark/backend/app/rest"
 )
 
 // JSON is a map alias, just for convenience
 type JSON map[string]interface{}
 
+type contextKey string
+
 // AppInfo adds custom app-info to the response header
 func AppInfo(app string, version string) func(http.Handler) http.Handler {
 	f := func(h http.Handler) http.Handler {
diff --git a/backend/app/rest/api/rest.go b/backend/app/rest/api/rest.go
index 37b17b71..8d27e2a5 100644
--- a/backend/app/rest/api/rest.go
+++ b/backend/app/rest/api/rest.go
@@ -5,8 +5,10 @@ import (
 	"context"
 	"encoding/json"
 	"fmt"
+	"io/ioutil"
 	"log"
 	"net/http"
+	"path"
 	"strings"
 	"sync"
 	"time"
@@ -174,6 +176,7 @@ func (s *Rest) routes() chi.Router {
 		})
 	})
 
+	// respond to /robots.tx with the list of allowed paths
 	router.With(tollbooth_chi.LimitHandler(tollbooth.NewLimiter(50, nil))).
 		Get("/robots.txt", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 			allowed := []string{"/find", "/last", "/id", "/count", "/counts", "/list", "/config", "/img", "/avatar"}
@@ -183,6 +186,17 @@ func (s *Rest) routes() chi.Router {
 			render.PlainText(w, r, "User-agent: *\nDisallow: /auth/\nDisallow: /api/\n"+strings.Join(allowed, "\n")+"\n")
 		})
 
+	// respond to /index.html with the content of getstarted.html under /web root
+	router.With(tollbooth_chi.LimitHandler(tollbooth.NewLimiter(50, nil))).
+		Get("/index.html", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+			data, err := ioutil.ReadFile(path.Join(s.WebRoot, "getstarted.html"))
+			if err != nil {
+				w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotFound)
+				return
+			}
+			render.HTML(w, r, string(data))
+		})
+
 	// file server for static content from /web
 	addFileServer(router, "/web", http.Dir(s.WebRoot))
 	return router
diff --git a/backend/app/rest/api/rest_test.go b/backend/app/rest/api/rest_test.go
index 324ab9dd..7826920d 100644
--- a/backend/app/rest/api/rest_test.go
+++ b/backend/app/rest/api/rest_test.go
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ import (
 
 var testDb = "/tmp/test-remark.db"
 var testHTML = "/tmp/test-remark.html"
+var getStartedHTML = "/tmp/getstarted.html"
 
 func TestRest_FileServer(t *testing.T) {
 	srv, ts := prep(t)
@@ -36,6 +37,24 @@ func TestRest_FileServer(t *testing.T) {
 	assert.Equal(t, "some html", body)
 }
 
+func TestRest_GetStarted(t *testing.T) {
+	srv, ts := prep(t)
+	assert.NotNil(t, srv)
+	defer cleanup(ts)
+
+	err := ioutil.WriteFile(getStartedHTML, []byte("some html blah"), 0700)
+	assert.Nil(t, err)
+
+	body, code := get(t, ts.URL+"/index.html")
+	assert.Equal(t, 200, code)
+	assert.Equal(t, "some html blah", body)
+
+	os.Remove(getStartedHTML)
+	_, code = get(t, ts.URL+"/index.html")
+	assert.Equal(t, 404, code)
+
+}
+
 func TestRest_Shutdown(t *testing.T) {
 	srv := Rest{Authenticator: auth.Authenticator{}, AvatarProxy: &proxy.Avatar{Store: proxy.NewFSAvatarStore("/tmp", 300),
 		RoutePath: "/api/v1/avatar"}, ImageProxy: &proxy.Image{}}