Hosted instance signup

Skip the install — sign up at syncropel.com and have a fully-portable Syncropel instance running in under a minute. Self-hosted and hosted are first-class equals; this page walks through the hosted onboarding path end-to-end.

If you don't want to install spl on a machine you maintain, syncropel.com hosts an instance for you on a per-customer Fly Machine. The instance you get is a full Syncropel daemon — the same binary, the same APIs, the same record store, the same federation surface as a self-hosted one. You can spl export and walk away to self-hosted at any time (the steward equivalence doctrine is binding).

This page covers the signup flow you'll see at syncropel.com/signup, what each step does behind the scenes, and what to do when the page hands you a bootstrap token.

Before you start

You need:

An email address that can receive verification mail.
A choice of instance label — a subdomain under syncropel.com, e.g. alice.syncropel.com. Lowercase letters, digits, and -. 3–32 characters. The label is yours for the lifetime of your account.
A way to save a one-time-displayed bootstrap token (a password manager is fine; a sticky note is not).

You do not need: a credit card (free tier exists), a Cloudflare or Fly account, Docker, or a domain you control.

The flow

Visit syncropel.com/signup. Clerk handles the account creation — email verification, password, optional social login. After verification you're returned to the signup form.

2. Pick a label

The signup page asks for a label. The label becomes both your subdomain and your default namespace prefix. If you pick alice, your instance lives at alice.syncropel.com and your records land under namespace alice by default.

Reserved labels (api, docs, www, app, admin, etc.) are rejected with an inline error. Pick something specific to you or your project.

3. Watch the provision phases

Submitting the form starts a Cloudflare Worker that walks through the provision phases live. The signup page shows each phase as it lands:

Phase	What's happening	Typical time
`reserve`	Label reserved against the global registry; a fresh `instance_id` minted.	< 1s
`app_create`	Fly app `spl-<label>-<id>` created in the syncropic-ops org.	1-2s
`volume_create`	Per-app persistent volume allocated for `~/.syncro/hub.db`.	1-2s
`dns`	`<label>.syncropel.com` CNAME'd to the Fly app's edge.	5-15s
`image_build` / `deploy`	Fly Machine boots from the syncropel-core release image, with `SPL_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN` injected via env.	20-40s
`bootstrap`	Kernel reads the env var, mints the admin service account, ready for auth.	1-2s
`dns_propagate`	The DNS record propagates through Cloudflare.	up to ~30s
`ready`	Instance is reachable; bootstrap token shown to you.	—

Total time to ready is typically 60–120 seconds. The form streams progress; if any phase fails, the page surfaces the error envelope from the Worker and gives you a retry path.

4. Save the bootstrap token

When provisioning finishes, the page displays your bootstrap token once. It looks like:

spl_prod_sa-bootstrap-env_a4f1b8c2e7d39406b18fa92e0d1c5e3b_8f4a26e1c5d83b7290f6e1c4

This is the canonical bearer for your instance's first admin service account, per ADR-035 D1. Save it somewhere durable. If you lose it before pairing a permanent credential, you'll need to revoke and re-bootstrap (recoverable, but not zero-friction).

5. Land on the dashboard

After you click through, you're redirected to your instance's dashboard. The browser's IndexedDB now holds your bootstrap bearer; subsequent requests to <label>.syncropel.com are auto-authed. The dashboard's first-run banner explains the next 3–5 things you should do (mint a service account for CLI use, create your first thread, optionally pair a second device).

What you can do once you're in

The same things any Syncropel user can do, with the same CLI and SDK surface as a self-hosted operator:

Use the web UI at <label>.syncropel.com — the workspace, threads, tasks, search.
Connect the CLI by saving the bootstrap token: spl token save <bearer>. Now spl thread list etc. talk to your hosted instance over HTTPS.
Pair more devices via spl pair browser-mobile or the Settings → Connections page in the web UI.
Federate with another Syncropel instance via spl federation pair <peer-url> — see the federation pair guide.
Export everything at any time via spl export — see Portability.

You don't manage the daemon — Fly's machine restart-on-OOM, Cloudflare's edge proxy, and the auth-proxy Worker handle uptime. You can still see daemon health via <label>.syncropel.com/health and rich state via <label>.syncropel.com/v1/health (auth-protected).

Hosted vs. self-hosted — which to pick

Both serve the same protocol. Pick by where you want the data and who manages uptime.

	Hosted (syncropel.com/signup)	Self-hosted (`spl serve --daemon`)
Where the data lives	Fly Machine + per-customer volume	Your `~/.syncro/hub.db`
Who handles uptime	Cloudflare + Fly	You
Backup story	Operator-snapshot policy on Fly	You — see Backup discipline
Federation	Yes — full peer	Yes — full peer
Cost	Free tier; paid for scale	Whatever your machine costs
Lock-in	None — `spl export` round-trips	None — same binary

Hosted is the path of least friction; self-hosted is the path of zero dependence on syncropel.com. Both are first-class.

When provisioning fails

Most provisioning failures fall into one of three buckets:

Label collision. Someone reserved that label first. Pick another.
Boot timeout. The Fly Machine took longer than the Worker's deadline. The page suggests waiting 30–60s and retrying — the underlying app may already be live.
Bootstrap token rejection. The kernel booted but the auth handshake hit a state issue. Less common since v0.27.1; if it happens, the diagnostic page links to a fresh provision retry.

For all three, the signup page surfaces a structured error envelope — no log scraping. If retries don't help, the diagnostics on the page contain everything support needs.

What's next

Service accounts and tokens — mint a permanent CLI bearer instead of using the bootstrap token long-term.
Pairing a browser or phone — get a second device onto the same instance.
First run — the same first-day walkthrough applies once you have any working instance, hosted or self-hosted.
Portability guide — spl export / spl import, the binding gate that keeps "leavable any time" honest.

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