Getting started

From nothing to a running app takes four steps. Everything here can be done in the console at cloud.co.zm/dash; the terminal equivalents use the cloud CLI.

1. Sign in

There are no passwords. Enter your email and open the magic link we send, or use Continue with Google. A session lasts seven days and is extended each day you use it. See Account & access.

2. Create an organisation

Every resource belongs to an organisation, and billing is per organisation. Create one on first sign-in (or accept an invitation to an existing one). You can belong to several and switch between them in the console header.

Your role in an organisation decides what you can do: owner and admin create and delete resources and manage billing, member can change existing resources, viewer can only look.

3. Add funds

The platform is prepaid: resources run against your organisation's balance and are billed by the hour, in Kwacha. Top up under Billing with mobile money (MTN, Airtel or Zamtel), a card, or a coupon code. Creating a resource needs a positive balance. Details in Billing.

4. Deploy your first app

In the console: App Platform → Create app, give it a name and a container image, and deploy.

From the terminal:

curl -fsSL https://cloud.co.zm/install.sh | sh
cloud login
cloud org use <your-org-slug>
cloud app create demo --image nginx:1.27 --region zm-lusaka-central-1 --wait

--wait prints status changes and finishes with the app's https:// URL once it is ready. The same flow works for a database or an object storage bucket.

Where things run

There is one region today, zm-lusaka-central-1 in Lusaka. Everything you create there is stored and served from Zambia. Read more on the data residency page.