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.
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
Accounts, tokens and scopes.
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.

Domains: custom hostnames

domains is a top-level list of the hostnames the slice answers on, beyond its default <user>-<slice>.ondrift.eu. It sits beside atomic / backbone / canvas, not inside them.

Driftfile
domains:
    - host: forms.gemeente.example
    - host: tenants.example.org
      wildcard: true                     # every subdomain reaches this slice
TypeDefaultMeaning
  • host
    Type
    string
    Default
    required
    Meaning
    The hostname the slice should answer on.
  • verify
    Type
    string
    Default
    dns-txt
    Meaning
    Ownership-proof method. dns-txt is the only accepted value.
  • wildcard
    Type
    boolean
    Default
    false
    Meaning
    Route every subdomain of host to this slice too.

The deploy adds what is missing: a host declared here and not yet on the slice is attached. A host live on the slice and absent here is left attached and named in apply's closing report, never removed — two projects can share a slice, and a deploy cannot tell a host that is not yours from one you dropped. Take one away deliberately with drift slice domain remove <host>. Adding a host doesn't finish the job: point your DNS at the slice, then run drift slice domain verify <host>, which checks the TXT record and issues the certificate. Domain reconcile is best-effort: a failure is reported but doesn't abort the rest of the deploy.

Two things wildcard does not mean.

It is routing, not certificates: each subdomain still gets its own certificate, issued on demand, and there is no wildcard cert. And it is not multitenancy: telling alice.example.org from bob.example.org is your app's job. The deploy's own add path sends host and verify only, so set the wildcard flag with drift slice domain add <host> --wildcard.