This guide walks through the first Cloud workflow: choose an organization, create an instance, connect to it, and create a scoped API key for application traffic.
1. Choose an Organization
Antfly Cloud resources are scoped to organizations. Organization administrators manage:
- members and invitations
- billing state and spend limits
- organization-scoped management API keys
- Cloud instances and instance-level access policies
Create or select the organization that should own the instance before provisioning Cloud infrastructure.
2. Create an Instance
Create an instance from the dashboard or with the Cloud API. The durable API shape is defined by
CreateCloudInstanceRequest in the Cloud spec.
{
"name": "Production Search",
"slug": "prod-search",
"region": "us-east5",
"tier": "standard",
"mode": "single"
}
single provisions one Antfly node and is the default topology. replicated provisions separate
metadata and data node groups for high availability. Starter instances are single-node only.
Instance creation is asynchronous. A new instance moves through pending and provisioning
before it becomes ready.
3. Wait for Ready
The instance list and instance detail views show lifecycle status. Automation can poll the Instances API.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
pending | The instance row exists and provisioning has been queued. |
provisioning | Antfly Cloud is creating the managed cluster. |
ready | The instance is accepting traffic. |
updating | A capacity or configuration change is being applied. |
degraded | The instance exists but the control plane detected unhealthy runtime state. |
deprovisioning | Deletion has been requested and cleanup is running. |
failed | Provisioning or reconciliation failed and requires intervention. |
4. Connect to the Instance
Use the connection details endpoint to retrieve the Cloud proxy URL for the instance.
Application data-plane requests go through:
/cloud/v1/{instance_id}/...
-> Antfly Cloud proxy
-> instance API-key authorization
-> managed Antfly instance
Use the standard Antfly API shape after the Cloud instance prefix. For endpoint details, use the core API Reference together with the Cloud Instances API.
5. Create an Instance API Key
Create an instance-scoped Cloud API key for application traffic. Start with read_write for
applications that need to index and query data, or read_only for query-only services.
Keys can be constrained with:
- allowed tables
- allowed operations
- monthly query quotas
- per-table row filters
- explicit instance grants
See Access Control and the API Keys reference.
6. Add Operational Defaults
For production instances, configure these early:
- billing spend limits for the organization
- a backup schedule for each instance
- grants for the users, groups, and service keys that need access
- metrics and audit-log review for ongoing operations
The Cloud docs sections cover those workflows in more detail.