Getting Started with ɳSelf Cloud

From zero to a running ɳSelf stack in under ten minutes. This guide walks through every step: creating an account, picking a plan, adding payment, provisioning your server, and connecting your local CLI.

Quick start (5 commands)

# 1. Authenticate with Cloud
nself cloud login

# 2. Provision a new instance (5–8 min)
nself cloud create myapp --plan pro --region fsn1

# 3. Switch context to the new instance
nself cloud use myapp

# 4. Verify everything is running
nself cloud status

# 5. Run any nself command against the Cloud instance
nself status
nself logs hasura --follow

Step 1 — Create an account

Sign up at cloud.nself.org/signup. You can register with email and password, or continue with Google or GitHub OAuth. Accounts for users under 18 cannot purchase paid plans without a parent or guardian co-signing.

Verify your email before provisioning. The verification link is sent immediately and expires after 24 hours. Resend it from the login page if needed.

Step 2 — Choose a plan

Plans map to Hetzner VPS sizes. You pay a flat management fee (covers provisioning, monitoring, updates, 24×7 alerting, and support) plus Hetzner infrastructure at published retail rates — no markup.

All plans include ɳSelf+ — every paid plugin bundle is active from day one. You never pay separately for plugin licenses on Cloud.

Can I upgrade later?

Yes. Upgrades take effect at the next maintenance window and resize your Hetzner VPS live. Downgrades apply at the end of the current billing cycle. See Billing for proration details.

Step 3 — Add payment

ɳSelf Cloud uses Stripe for all billing. Enter a credit or debit card, choose monthly or annual billing (annual saves roughly 17%), and confirm. You receive an email receipt immediately.

Your Stripe customer portal is always available from Dashboard → Settings → Billing. From there you can update cards, download PDF invoices, and update your billing address. We never store raw card numbers.

Step 4 — Provision your server

From the Cloud dashboard, click New Server. You will be prompted for:

• Subdomain: something like myapp, resulting in myapp.cloud.nself.org. Or bring your own domain — point a CNAME at myapp.cloud.nself.org first, then enter it here.
• Region: fsn1 (Falkenstein DE), hel1 (Helsinki FI), ash1 (Ashburn VA), or sin1 (Singapore).
• Plugins: optional list of plugins to pre-install. You can add more later.

Or provision from the CLI:

# Provision from CLI (5–8 minutes)
nself cloud create myapp --plan pro --region fsn1

# With plugins pre-installed
nself cloud create myapp --plan business --region fsn1 --plugins ai,mux,claw

# With a custom domain
nself cloud create myapp --plan starter --region hel1 --domain api.mycompany.com

The control plane then runs this 8-step pipeline automatically:

1. Creates a Hetzner VPS in your region (Ubuntu 24.04)
2. Waits for the server to reach running state
3. Runs cloud-init: installs Docker + ɳSelf CLI + calls nself init
4. Creates DNS A record + wildcard for your subdomain
5. Issues wildcard TLS certificate via Let's Encrypt DNS-01
6. Installs your licensed plugins from the registry
7. Polls /health until all services return 200
8. Sends you a welcome email with credentials

You can watch each step complete in real-time on the server detail page. Total time is 5–8 minutes for a default stack, up to 12 minutes if you selected every plugin bundle.

Step 5 — First login

The welcome email contains:

• Your Hasura admin secret
• Your ɳSelf admin console credentials
• A direct link to the admin console at admin.<your-domain>

Log in to the admin console and verify all services are healthy. Then connect your local CLI:

# Authenticate with Cloud
nself cloud login

# Switch to your new instance
nself cloud use myapp

# Confirm context is set
nself cloud context
# → Active: myapp (myapp.cloud.nself.org)

# Run nself commands — they target the Cloud instance
nself status
nself logs hasura
nself plugin list

Step 6 — Connect your application

Your Cloud instance exposes the same endpoints as a self-hosted stack:

# Endpoints for your instance
API:      https://myapp.cloud.nself.org/graphql
Auth:     https://myapp.cloud.nself.org/auth
Storage:  https://myapp.cloud.nself.org/storage
Console:  https://myapp.cloud.nself.org/console   # Hasura console

# Pull env vars into your local project
nself cloud exec myapp -- nself env export > .env.cloud

What is included in every plan

Troubleshooting provisioning

If provisioning stalls or fails, the dashboard shows the exact step and error. Common causes:

If retry does not resolve the issue, open a support ticket from the dashboard. Provisioning failures are never billed — if your server never reached the health check step, no charge is recorded.

Next steps

• Billing and subscriptions — plan details, proration, metered overage, cancellation
• How provisioning works — the full 8-step pipeline in detail
• Updates and maintenance — channels, cadence, rollback
• Support — response times, how to file a ticket
• Cloud CLI reference — all nself cloud commands
• ɳTV Cloud MAX — streaming features on the MAX plan