Quickstart

Go from zero to a deployed function with the Volcano CLI — develop locally first, then push the same project to the cloud.

1. Install the CLI

npm install -g @volcano.dev/cli
volcano --help

Other methods (pnpm, Bun, Homebrew) are in installation.

2. Sign up

volcano signup

This creates your account and logs you in.

3. Scaffold a project

volcano init javascript      # also: nextjs, python, ruby

This creates a starter project with a sample function under volcano/functions/ and a volcano-config.yaml describing it.

4. Develop locally

Start a full Volcano stack on your machine:

volcano start
volcano status

While the local environment is running, the top-level commands act on it. Deploy the project and invoke the scaffolded function:

volcano deploy
volcano functions invoke hello --payload '{"name":"Ada"}'

volcano deploy deploys everything the project holds — variables, functions, frontends, and volcano-config.yaml — and waits until it is live. You'll get the function's JSON response. Edit volcano/functions/hello.js, run volcano deploy again, and invoke again to iterate — no cloud round-trip.

Add --with-migrations once your project has migrations in volcano/migrations. Migrations aren't tracked, so every file runs again on each --with-migrations run: write them to be safe to repeat, or leave the flag out once they have run.

5. Deploy to the cloud

Create a cloud project and select it:

volcano projects create my-app
volcano use my-app

volcano/volcano.env holds the local server's URL and keys, which the cloud project can't use, so give the cloud project its own env file. Prefix a command with cloud to target the cloud project explicitly:

echo 'GREETING=Hello from the cloud' > volcano/cloud.env
volcano cloud deploy --env-file volcano/cloud.env
volcano cloud functions invoke hello --payload '{"name":"Ada"}'

Your function now runs on Volcano's managed infrastructure, and its greeting comes from volcano/cloud.env. volcano cloud deploy refuses an env file that still holds the local server's values. The deploy also applied volcano-config.yaml, which manages the project's settings (variables, schedules, auth, and function and frontend settings) from one manifest — see declarative config.

What's next

For the full command set, see the CLI reference or run volcano <command> --help.