drift Docs
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What is Drift?
The tour, if you are new here.
Why Drift?
Two reasons, and they are independent.
The case for a small cloud
What disappears, and what it costs you.
Made in Europe
Built, hosted and owned in the EU.
Use cases
Whether Drift does your thing.
Getting started
Nothing to deployed, in one command.
Architecture
How a slice is put together.
What it costs
The free grant, four unit prices, two rules.
Build
Atomic
Serverless functions.
Write a function
The handler shape, and what you pay for.
Six languages
Go, Python, Node, Ruby, PHP, Rust.
Runtime versions
Which interpreter version your function runs on.
Authentication
The auth= gate, and per-route API keys.
Request headers
What reaches your handler, and what does not.
Triggers
Queue-triggered and scheduled functions.
Streaming
SSE and WebSocket from one function.
Outbound egress
What a slice may dial.
Memory and concurrency
What a booking buys, and what happens at the edge of it.
Limits and alerts
Timeout, memory and rate, and being told.
Elements
One language, one manifest, many functions.
The CLI surface
Every drift atomic command.
Backbone
Secrets, data, blobs, queues.
NoSQL
JSON collections, upserted on _id.
SQL
Per-slice SQLite, with transactions.
Blobs
Files and uploads, organised by bucket.
Secrets
Encrypted config a function declares.
Queues
FIFO messages that trigger functions.
Cache
Key/value strings with a TTL.
Locks
Stop two workers doing one job.
Realtime
In-slice pub/sub over WebSocket.
Canvas
Static sites, same origin as your API.
Deed
Identity, devices and wallets.
KeyAuth
Passwordless login with device keys.
JWT
Sign and verify with the slice's own key.
Vault
Ciphertext the slice cannot read.
Link
Enroll a second device by attestation.
Pocket
E2EE app data that follows an identity.
Tools
CLI
One binary, every noun.
Reference
The binary, and every noun.
account
Sign up, log in, delete.
slice
Create, resize, snapshot, domains.
file
Lint it, apply it, run it.
atomic
One function at a time.
backbone
Reach into the data plane.
deed
One read-only status command.
canvas
Deploy a static site.
migrate
Move off another cloud.
doctor
Explain a failure code, offline.
Dashboard
What bare drift opens.
SDK
Six languages, zero dependencies.
Writing a handler
Arguments, request, return.
API reference
Both namespaces, every call.
NoSQL
Documents, by _id or storage key.
SQL
Queries and transactions.
Cache
Strings with a TTL.
Secrets
Read what the function declared.
Blobs
Bytes, addressed bucket/key.
Queues
Push, and pull if you must.
Locks
A token you hand back.
Realtime
Publish, and count who heard.
Deed
KeyAuth, JWT, Vault, Link, Pocket.
Utilities
Logs, egress, cross-slice calls.
Languages
The same handler, six ways.
Driftfile
One file that describes your app.
Anatomy
Every top-level key, and the name rules.
A worked example
One app with every section written out.
Atomic
Function limits, schedules, alerts, egress.
Backbone
Collections, databases, buckets, secrets.
Canvas
Sites, and the route each mounts on.
Domains
Custom hostnames the slice answers on.
Environments
One project, several slices, one file.
Deploying
Lint it, hook a build on, read its errors.
Operate
Auth
Route gates, API keys and your account.
Security
Boundaries, sandboxing and hardening.
Troubleshooting
Error codes
What went wrong, and what to do about it.
Legal
Acceptable use
What a slice may not be used for.
Data processing
The DPA, and every sub-processor.

What is Drift?

Drift is a hyposcaler. We might use that term playfully, but it has weight behind it: Drift's footprint is small and its construction is honest by design. It stands in direct opposition to "hyperscaler", with all of its implications. We believe in access to simple, comprehensible software and data hosting services that anyone of reasonable knowledge in the art can wrap their head around in a night of focused work.

We built Drift to resemble your local development environment, and to grant you that same speed to iterate and release without needing to worry about endless manifests or infrastructure specifics, while setting everything up in the background to be as secure, connected and encrypted from the first deploy.

A network boundary around your slice, TLS on every hostname, encryption at rest, tenant isolation and a same-origin path from your site to your API are all there from the first deploy. None of them is a product you select, size, wire up or see on the bill, because an application should never have had to purchase them one at a time. What is left to learn is four building blocks: Atomic for compute, Backbone for data, Canvas for hosting, and Deed for identity. You declare what you want in one file and ship it with one command: no dashboards, no boilerplate, no infrastructure to babysit.

What you get out of the box

  • Custom domains. Your own hostnames, managed from the CLI.
  • Automatic TLS. Issued and renewed for you, on every domain.
  • No cold starts. Always running. It never scales to zero.
  • Same-origin API. Your site calls your functions. No CORS.
  • Encrypted secrets. Read fresh each call. Change one, no redeploy.
  • CLI-first. Deploy, inspect and roll back from the terminal.
  • Made in Europe. Privacy and transparent pricing by default.

Where to go next

Getting started takes you from nothing to a deployed app. Architecture explains what a slice is and how the four pillars fit together. What it costs has the free grant, the four unit prices, and the two rules that decide your number. Everything else is in the sidebar.