ORC8R is a tool for running and managing servers, which it calls nodes. Instead of setting up machines one by one, you describe what you want, and ORC8R provisions the machines, installs your software on them, and keeps them running. You do everything from one web app. This page explains how the pieces fit together and points you to the rest of the documentation.

The mental model

ORC8R is organized in four layers, from the top down:

1. Organization — your company or team. It sits at the top and owns everything else. You and your colleagues all belong to the same organization.
2. Projects — workspaces inside an organization. Teams usually make one project per environment or application, so that work stays neatly separated.
3. Pools — groups of identical machines inside a project. Every node in a pool shares the same size, the same setup, and the same apps.
4. Nodes — the individual machines. A node is one server you can run software on.

So a node lives in a pool, a pool lives in a project, and a project lives in an organization.

Two more pieces complete the picture:

• Providers supply the machines. When you create a pool you choose a provider — either infrastructure that ORC8R manages for you, or your own machines (called self-hosted). See Providers.
• The agent is a small program ORC8R installs on every node so the machine can report its status and receive software.

You can also install apps onto your nodes. An app is a piece of software ORC8R sets up for you, so you do not have to configure each machine by hand. See Authoring apps.

What you can do from the app

• Create organizations and projects, and invite people to them.
• Request pools of nodes, choosing their size, resources, and apps.
• Watch nodes come online and see their state at a glance.
• Scale a pool up or down, rebuild or remove nodes.
• Open a node's logs or a browser terminal to troubleshoot.
• Connect your own machines to a self-hosted pool.
• Create API keys to automate all of the above from scripts.

Where to go next

• Quickstart — go from signing in to a running node, step by step.
• Organizations — teams, members, roles, and limits.
• Projects — workspaces inside an organization.
• Pools — grouping and scaling nodes, and how pool images work.
• Nodes — node states, the agent, and everyday actions.
• Providers — where your nodes run.
• Authoring apps — install and build software for your nodes.
• API keys — automate ORC8R from scripts.
• FAQ — quick answers to common questions.