Getting Started

This guide takes you from an empty workspace to a deployed service.

1. Create your account

Sign up with email and password, a GitHub or Google account, or a passwordless magic link. Verify your email if you signed up with a password, then complete your profile.

2. Create a workspace

Your workspace holds members, projects, and billing. Give it a name and slug — the slug appears in URLs and API paths. On the pricing step, start on the free plan; you can upgrade any time (see Billing & Usage).

Invite teammates now or later from Team Management.

3. Create a project

A project groups your services and environments:

1. In the dashboard, click New Project.
2. Pick a name — environments and preview URLs derive from it.

The project starts with a production environment. Preview environments appear automatically as you work with branches; you can add custom branch environments in project settings.

4. Add a service

Choose how the service gets its code:

• Git repository — connect your GitHub/GitLab account and pick a repo. Parslinks adds its own webhook to the repo (it never modifies your code).
• Existing image — point at an OCI image in any registry.
• Template — start from a recipe that scaffolds a common stack (Templates & Resources).
• Resource — add managed infrastructure like Postgres or Redis.

Creating the service automatically creates one instance in every live environment of the project.

5. Deploy

For a Git service, the first deploy runs immediately: build → immutable artifact → deployment → rollout onto the replica-set with a health gate. When it's ready you get:

• A stable alias URL for the environment
• A per-deployment hostname for testing this exact release

Pushing to the deploy branch redeploys automatically when auto-deploy is on. Every build's logs stream live in the dashboard; every historical deployment stays rollback-ready.

6. Wire up configuration

• Add instance variables for environment-specific values (Variables & Configuration)
• Attach a custom domain (Domains & TLS)
• Check logs and metrics (Observability)

7. Open a console

Need to poke at the running container? Open an interactive shell to any ready replica from the service page — no SSH keys required (Runtime & Infrastructure).

Where to next

• Understand the release model: Deployments
• How deletion stays reversible: Deleting & Restoring