Getting Started

This guide walks through the first steps on Planton: creating an account, setting up an organization and environment, connecting a cloud provider, and deploying an Infra Component. By the end, you will have working infrastructure deployed to your own cloud account.

Prerequisites

• A modern web browser
• An AWS, GCP, or Azure account with permissions to create resources
• Either permission to create a keyless trust in that account (see Keyless Cloud Connections), or credentials for it (access keys, a service account key, or a service principal)

Step 1: Create Your Account

Navigate to planton.ai and click Login or Join Beta in the header. Both lead to the same authentication page.

The authentication page handles both login and registration. Click Sign up to switch to registration mode, then choose one of:

• Email and password — enter your email and create a password
• Continue with Google — authenticate with your Google account

After completing signup, you land on the dashboard.

Step 2: Create Your Organization

An organization is the top-level container for everything in Planton — environments, connections, team members, and billing. It is similar to a Google Cloud organization or an AWS account.

As a new user without an organization, the dashboard prompts you to create one.

1. Click Create Organization
2. Enter the organization name (human-readable, e.g., "Acme Corp")
3. Enter the organization slug, e.g., "acme-corp" — this must be unique across the platform. A slug is lowercase letters and digits joined by single hyphens, like my-app-2; an organization's slug also starts with a letter and is 2 to 15 characters
4. Click Create

You are now the organization owner. The context selector in the top-left of the header shows your organization name.

Step 3: Create Your First Environment

Environments are logical groupings that separate your resources — typically corresponding to deployment stages like development, staging, and production. All infrastructure and services deploy into an environment, not directly into an organization.

1. Navigate to Infra Hub in the sidebar
2. Click Create Environment (or find the environment creation option)
3. Enter a name — start with something like dev or development
4. Click Create

The context selector now shows both your organization and the active environment:

Acme Corp / dev

Using the CLI:

# Create an environment
planton env create dev --description "Development environment"

# List environments
planton env list

# Set the environment as your default context
planton context set --org acme-corp --env dev

Step 4: Connect a Cloud Provider

Before deploying infrastructure, connect your cloud provider account. This gives Planton the credentials to create and manage resources on your behalf.

1. Click Connections in the sidebar
2. Find your cloud provider card (AWS, GCP, Azure, or others) under the Infrastructure section
3. Click Connect on the provider card
4. Choose how Planton authenticates. For AWS, GCP, and Azure, the wizard lists OIDC (Keyless) first: your account trusts Planton's identity issuer, and Planton stores no credential. The wizard creates the connection, gives you a setup script with every value filled in, and verifies the trust once you have run it. See Keyless Cloud Connections for each cloud's steps. To store a credential instead, choose the inline method and provide:
   • AWS: Access Key ID and Secret Access Key
   • GCP: A service account key
   • Azure: Subscription ID, Tenant ID, Client ID, and Client Secret
5. Authorize for your environment — select which environments can use this connection. Check the box next to your dev environment.
6. Click Submit

The connection now appears in the Connected Providers list and is ready for use.

Why environment authorization matters: A connection exists at the organization level, but it must be explicitly authorized for each environment where it can be used. This prevents a production AWS account from being accidentally used during development. See Environment Mappings for details.

Step 5: Deploy Your First Infra Component

With a cloud provider connected and authorized, you can deploy infrastructure.

1. Open the Infra Catalog — click the store icon in the header (right side)
2. Browse or search for a kind (e.g., search "VPC" and filter by your cloud provider)
3. Click the kind to see its details
4. Click Deploy
5. Fill in the configuration form with your desired settings
6. Click Deploy

An Infra Job is created automatically. Infra Jobs are the execution units that run Pulumi, Terraform, or OpenTofu to provision your infrastructure. You can watch the deployment progress in real-time as each operation (init, refresh, plan, apply) completes.

Once the Infra Job completes, your Infra Component is live. Navigate to Infra Hub in the sidebar and click Infra Components to see it listed with its current status.

Step 6: Complete the Onboarding Checklist

The dashboard includes a getting-started checklist that tracks your progress through the initial setup. The eight tasks are organized into four groups:

Foundation

• Connect a cloud account
• Create an environment

Infrastructure

• Deploy your first Infra Component
• Deploy an Infra Chart stack

Applications

• Connect a Git provider (GitHub or GitLab)
• Deploy your first service

Team and Operations

• Invite team members
• Set up billing

You can complete these tasks in any order, and dismiss the checklist at any time from the dashboard.

What to Explore Next

With your first resource deployed, here are the natural next steps:

• Deploy more resources — return to the Infra Catalog and deploy a database, Kubernetes cluster, or storage bucket. See Infrastructure.
• Deploy an Infra Chart — instead of individual resources, deploy a coordinated set of resources (e.g., VPC + ECS Cluster + ALB) as a single Infra Chart. See Infra Charts.
• Deploy an application — connect GitHub, create a Service, and push code to trigger an automated build and deployment pipeline. See CI/CD.
• Invite your team — go to Settings > Manage Members to invite colleagues and assign roles. See Teams and Access.
• Explore the console — take a Platform Tour to learn what each section of the console does.

CLI Quick Reference

These are the CLI commands relevant to the steps in this guide:

# Set your default context (organization and environment)
planton context set --org <org-slug> --env <env-slug>

# View your current context
planton context get

# List environments
planton env list

# Create an environment
planton env create <name> --description "<description>"

# Get environment details
planton env get <name>

For CLI installation instructions, see CLI.