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Pilots runs sandboxes and production services on one primitive, a machine. These pages are how to drive it: from the first command to the error codes you will meet at the worst moment.

If you have done none of this before, three commands is the whole of it. The first installs a single static binary, the second opens a browser, and the third turns the directory you are standing in into a URL.

curl -fsSL https://pilots.run/install.sh | sh
pilot login
pilot deploy

The quickstart walks through what each of those did and what to do next. Otherwise, pick the thing you came for.

Run something now A machine with a shell, Node and Python, a URL of its own, and no bill while it sleeps. Put an app on a URL One call takes a directory to a running service. No Dockerfile needed first. Give an agent the platform An MCP server, a skill, a plugin, and four typed clients that speak the same API.

Every page

In reading order. The docs can be read straight through, and the pair of links at the foot of each page follows this same order.

Start here

  • Introduction What pilots is, and which of the three paths through these pages is yours.
  • Quickstart Install the CLI, sign in, run something in a sandbox, put a directory on a URL.
  • How it fits together Machines, services, apps and orgs, and why a sandbox and a production replica are the same thing.

Sandboxes

  • Sandboxes Create a machine, run commands in it, move files in and out, reach a port, leave a console running.
  • Checkpoints and forks Capture a machine with its memory, put it back exactly as it was, branch a new machine off it.
  • What a machine may do A machine holds no API key. It asks a broker inside its own network, and a grant is what answers.

Shipping an app

  • Deploy One directory to a URL: what the platform detects, the two Dockerfile rules, and monorepos.
  • Compose files More than one service, and every pilots knob that compose itself has no word for.
  • Services and releases The health gate, what a release is, rolling back, replicas, and reading a replica log.
  • Scheduled jobs A cron is a request on a schedule, declared in a compose file or in the app config you already have.
  • Promote Turn a sandbox into a durable service without changing its URL.
  • Secrets A value an app needs in its environment, kept out of the repository, the state store and the conversation.

State that outlives a machine

  • Volumes and snapshots Data that survives a redeploy, where it really lives, and how it is restored.
  • Databases Postgres, MySQL, Redis and Mongo as ordinary services, with the durability choice stated out loud.

Addresses

  • URLs and domains How an address is minted, why it never changes, reaching another port, and attaching a hostname you own.

Interfaces

  • The pilot CLI Every command, grouped the way the binary groups them, with what each is for.
  • API and SDKs The HTTP surface every host serves, API keys and their scopes, and the four typed clients.
  • Agents and MCP The MCP server, the skill, the plugin, and running Claude Code inside a machine.
  • The Claude Code plugin Install the plugin, what it adds, the calls it asks about first, and where its credential comes from.
  • The VS Code extension Open a machine as a workspace folder, edit its files, and put a shell beside them.

Reference

  • Errors Every code the API returns, what it means, and the one thing to do about it.
  • What we operate Which half of running a database is ours and which is yours, and the platform limits worth knowing.