# Introduction to Northflank

Northflank is the full-stack cloud platform. Seamlessly build, deploy and scale your code, jobs and databases.

Northflank allows you to:

- Build and deploy code written in any language, using any framework, with a Dockerfile or a buildpack. Simply connect your account on a Git provider such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

- Automatically build and deploy every commit you make, or you can create rules for specific branches and pull requests.

- Deploy Docker images from external registries such as Docker Hub, Google Container Registry, or GitHub Packages container registry. Save your credentials to easily access private registries.

- Deploy addon databases & services such as MinIO and RabbitMQ in one click and connect these with your services to create fully stateful applications.

- Run your code on a schedule or as and when you need to with cron and manual jobs. A job can build and run any code from a repository — or use an existing Docker image from a public or private registry.

- Create team accounts at no extra cost, with all the features of user accounts. Work together seamlessly with the real-time user interface that shows you what your team members are doing. Granular role-based access control means you can securely give your developers access to exactly what they need.

- Work in real time. All actions, updates and changes are instantly reflected in the user interface, resulting in unparalleled developer experience.

- Set up dedicated development, staging and production environments with pipelines. When you are happy with a development build, simply promote it to another linked deployment service in the next stage with one click.

- Save groups of build and runtime variables to inherit in your deployments. Get connection details from addons and create dynamic variables using templating.

![The horizontal scaling form for a deployment in the Northflank application](https://assets.northflank.com/documentation/v1/application/getting-started/introduction-to-northflank/project-overview.png)

## Create your Northflank account

You can create an account and set up a personal team on Northflank for [free](https://northflank.com/docs/v1/application/billing/pricing-on-northflank#deploy-for-free), with limited resources. You can later upgrade this team or create a new one to fully utilise the Northflank platform.

> [!note]
>
> [Click here](https://app.northflank.com/signup) to create an account.

You can invite users to a team to [collaborate on Northflank](https://northflank.com/docs/v1/application/collaborate/create-a-team), at no extra cost.

If you would like to manage more users across multiple teams you can [create an organisation](https://northflank.com/docs/v1/application/collaborate/manage-an-organisation) to unlock enterprise features.

See our [pricing page](https://northflank.com/pricing) for more information on plans.

![Creating a team in the Northflank application](https://assets.northflank.com/documentation/v1/application/collaborate/create-a-team/create-team.png)

## Automate with Northflank Skills

Northflank Skills provide AI coding agents with Northflank-specific knowledge for deploying, operating, and automating workloads on the platform.

They help agents understand Northflank primitives such as services, jobs, add-ons, preview environments, release workflows, sandboxes, GPU workloads, templates, and the API/CLI.

Skills can be used with agentic coding tools like Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor to create, configure, deploy, and troubleshoot applications on Northflank using the right platform concepts and commands.

> [!note]
>
> [Click here](https://github.com/northflank/skills) to explore Northflank Skills on GitHub.

## Getting started

The getting started section contains walkthrough guides to get you up-and-running on Northflank. They follow the in-app onboarding achievements, which can be found under the rocket button  in the top-right of the application.

- [Link your Git account: Integrate your Git accounts with Northflank to start building and deploying your code.](/v1/application/getting-started/link-your-git-account)
- [Create a project: Create a project to contain your services, persistent data, secrets, and more.](/v1/application/getting-started/create-a-project)
- [Create a team and invite members: Create a team and invite members to collaborate on projects.](/v1/application/collaborate/create-a-team)
- [Build and deploy your code: Quickly and easily build and run code from a Git repository using a Dockerfile or buildpack.](/v1/application/getting-started/build-and-deploy-your-code)
- [Set up a pipeline: Manage your workflow and release your code in an intuitive pipeline.](/v1/application/getting-started/set-up-a-pipeline)
- [Add and verify domain: Add your domain name to your Northflank account and link it to a public port.](/v1/application/getting-started/add-a-and-verify-domain)