I have a parameter (let's say length) and I want to get the value of that parameter when the animation started (first frame). However, I want to get this value procedurally without having to scrub the time slider to the very first frame.

How can this be done?

You could use the chf() expression to evaluate the channel at a specific frame. Also you could load the channel into a CHOP network and use a chopf() expression to get the value as well.

awesome! chf() worked!