Getting started

This is the shortest path from nothing to a live app: an account, the CLI, a project, a deploy. About ten minutes if nothing goes wrong. It is a tutorial, not a reference — every command here has a fuller page linked at the end.

1. Create your account

Sign up at camplax.dev/app/sign-up. Camplax is $20/month, card required — there is no free tier. That one payment covers hosting, the database, sign-in, storage, deploys, previews, domains and secrets for every project you make. AI calls draw from prepaid credits, which you can load later under Billing.

2. Install the CLI

You need Node 24 or newer, then:

npm install -g camplax

Check it landed:

camplax help

3. Sign in

camplax login

A browser window opens so you can approve this machine. Approve it and the CLI stores a token in ~/.camplax/config.json. You never paste the token into a file.

For a machine with no browser — CI, a server, an agent — paste a token instead:

camplax login <token>

or set CAMPLAX_TOKEN in the environment. Project API keys are created in the console under Keys, with scopes like deploy or env:read so a leak is limited to one project.

4. Create the project — and, if you want, a starter app

Two different things happen here, and the order confuses everyone once:

1. The project lives on Camplax. Open camplax.dev/app, choose New project, and pick a name. The name becomes the slug in the URL, and provisioning starts — hosting, a database, sign-in and storage under one slug like my-app.
2. The code lives on your machine. If you are starting from scratch, run camplax create my-app. It scaffolds the starter app locally — a Plax app with sign-in, a notes table, a server AI route and its first SQL migrations already wired. It only writes files to your disk; it does not create the Camplax project, which is why the console step comes first.

Already have a repo? Skip create entirely and link it below.

5. Link and deploy

From the folder that holds your code:

camplax link my-app
camplax deploy

link ties the folder to the project (it writes .camplax/link.json). deploy queues a production deploy of the connected repository. Watch it finish:

camplax logs

When the deploy reports ready, the app is live at https://my-app.camplax.app. That URL works from the first deploy — https included, nothing to configure.

If you connected a GitHub repo instead, a push to the default branch does the same thing — see Hosting and deploys.

6. Pull the environment

camplax env pull

This writes the project's vault into a local .env — the keys your app reads, with development values where you set them. It never contains the production database string by default; that is deliberate.

7. Work on it locally

camplax dev

This pulls the project's environment into .env.local and runs your start command. The production database is blocked by default so a local experiment cannot touch live data; pass --use-production-database only when you mean it.

8. Put it on your own domain

One line of DNS: add the domain in the console under Domains, point a CNAME at edge.camplax.app, and press Verify. The certificate is provisioned for you. Domains has the whole flow.

When something looks wrong

• camplax doctor checks the folder, the login and the link, in plain English.
• camplax probe runs live write → read → delete checks against the project's real features and prints pass, skip or fail per check.
• camplax rollback puts the previous production build back without rebuilding.

Where next

• How Camplax works — what a project contains and where each piece runs.
• Hosting and deploys — previews, deploy hooks, rollback.
• Secrets — what env pull and env push actually move.
• Database — tables, migrations, preview branches.
• CLI reference — every command and flag.