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Introduction

Astrodock is a small app platform you run yourself. Install it once on a machine you control, and it hosts the little apps you build — each with a login system, a database, and file storage already wired up.

Think of it like having your own tiny Heroku or Vercel, but on your own laptop or a cheap server — and unlike those, it also handles user accounts and login for the apps you deploy. There's nothing to sign up for and no monthly cloud bill: everything it needs runs in one bundle on your box.

What you get out of the box

Hosting + automatic HTTPS — each app gets its own web address like notes.yourdomain.com, with TLS certificates handled for you.
User login for your apps — create users, decide who can access which app, and your app just asks Astrodock "is this person allowed in?"
A database — a Postgres database per app, created automatically. (Or plug in an external one.)
File storage — S3-compatible object storage per app. (Or bring your own.)
Deploys — push to GitHub and it redeploys, or upload straight from your laptop with one command.
A dashboard — a web admin UI to manage apps, users, deploys, logs, and health.

Zero external dependencies

The database and file storage are bundled — they start up as part of Astrodock. You don't need a cloud database or storage account to get going. They're a swap-in upgrade later if you ever want one.

The pieces

You don't need to know the internals to use Astrodock, but here's the lay of the land:

The dashboard (admin UI) — where you manage everything, at admin.<your-domain>.
Your apps — the small web apps you deploy. Each lives at its own subdomain.
The astrodock CLI — a command-line tool to create and deploy apps without clicking through the dashboard. It's also how an AI agent drives the platform.
The bundled database & storage — shared services your apps can use.

For a diagram and the technical breakdown, see Architecture.

A few words you'll see a lot

App	One web app you deploy. Identified by a slug (like `notes`).
Subdomain	The web address an app is served at, e.g. `notes` → `notes.yourdomain.com`.
`app.json`	A small file in your app's folder that describes it (name, subdomain, what it needs). See App structure.
Resource mode	For each app you choose, per resource: `internal` (Astrodock provides it), `external` (you bring your own), or `none`.
Platform login	The built-in user/auth system your apps can use instead of building their own.

Is Astrodock for me?

Great fit: a solo developer or small team who wants to spin up internal tools, side projects, or small apps quickly, on one machine, with logins handled — and keep control of the box and the data.

Not a fit (yet): large multi-tenant SaaS, or untrusted users sharing one box. Astrodock assumes a single trusted operator — see Security for the honest threat model.

What's next

Ready to run it? Head to Install & run — about 15 minutes, locally or on a server.