Get started

Quickstart

From your invitation to players connecting to your first game server, in about ten minutes.

This takes you from the invitation email to a Minecraft server your friends can join. Every step shows the console first; the CLI, Terraform and API do the same thing if you would rather work that way.

Plany is invitation-only for now. Your invitation email carries a one-time password. Sign in at the console with it, and the first thing you are asked to do is choose your own.

Until you have chosen your own password, the emailed one can do exactly one thing: change itself. Everything else is refused — including from the CLI. Lost the email? Forgot your password? on the sign-in page sends you a link.

Your account is already on the Pro plan with credit granted, so there is nothing to pay before you start.

2. Get set up for the tool you'll use

The console needs nothing more. For the others:

1# Sign in with the password you just chose
2plany auth login --email you@example.com
3 
4# Most commands act in a project and a region; set them once you have a project
5plany config set region eu-west-2

See Authentication for API keys and sessions.

3. Create a project

Everything that runs belongs to a project. A project is what you are billed for, what access is granted on, and what has its own private network.

Projects → New project → give it a name → Create project

A project id is unique across Plany and cannot change, because it appears in the name of everything inside the project. If you leave it out, one is made from the name you gave.

Using the CLI? Create the project in the console, then point the CLI at it with plany config set project my-game.

4. Pick a game

Plany publishes games you can run straight away: Minecraft Java (vanilla and Forge), Garry's Mod and Counter-Strike 2. Games form a tree, and only the entries at the ends of it — the ones with an actual build behind them — can be run:

text

1games/minecraft
2└── games/minecraft-java
3    ├── games/minecraft-java-vanilla
4    │   └── games/minecraft-java-vanilla-1-20-4   ← can be run
5    └── games/minecraft-java-forge
6        └── games/minecraft-java-forge-1-20-4     ← can be run

Games → browse the catalogue

To run a game Plany does not publish, see Builds.

5. Create a server

Servers → New server → choose the game → Create

The server moves through PROVISIONING and STARTING to RUNNING. The CLI and Terraform wait for it; the API returns an operation you can poll. The first start installs the game and generates the world, so it can take a few minutes — a modded server longer. Later starts take seconds.

6. Give players the address

The address to hand out is on the server's page in the console, printed by the CLI and Terraform, and the first entry in the server's endpoints in the API.

Servers → survival → Overview → Connect

That address keeps working while the server is stopped — connecting to it starts the server, and the player is let in a few seconds later. Copy the whole address, port included: the port players use is not always the game's usual one. See Addresses and waking.

7. Let it sleep when nobody is playing

A server with sleep_after_idle set goes to sleep once nobody has been connected to it for that long — the API example above sets fifteen minutes. A sleeping server draws no credit for compute, keeps its world, and wakes when the next player connects to its address. You can also stop a server yourself at any time, and start it again whenever you like.

To see what it is doing:

Servers → survival → Players   (who is on it now)
Servers → survival → Logs      (what the server printed)

Where next

Bring your own game

Upload a zip, install from Steam, or fetch a vendor archive.

Scale a fleet

Declare a size range and what to scale on; the group does the rest.

Run code when a player joins

Deploy a container that runs on requests or on events from your game.

Save with spot

Run on spare capacity at 60% off, on the Pro plan.