QIOI documentation.

Getting started

A QIOI account gives you access to the application catalogue, the deployment wizard, and the dashboard. Sign up, verify your email, and you can deploy your first application in one session — the wizard shows the monthly estimate before you commit to anything.

Before deploying, decide three things: which application you need, which region it should run in, and — if the application calls external models — which model provider account you will connect.

Deploying an application

Deployment is a seven-step wizard. Nothing is provisioned — and nothing is billed — until you confirm at the final step.

1. 1

   Choose an application

   Pick a tested template from the catalogue. Each shows minimum resources, recommended plans, and what is and is not included.

2. 2

   Choose a plan

   Select the resource plan (S through XL). The wizard filters out plans below the template's minimum requirements.

3. 3

   Choose a region

   Select a supported deployment region, including Canadian data residency where available.

4. 4

   Domain and options

   Use a qioi.app subdomain or configure a custom domain. Set storage and backup options within plan limits.

5. 5

   Model provider

   If the application calls external models, connect your own provider account and API key. Keys are stored encrypted and billed by your provider, not by QIOI.

6. 6

   Review the estimate

   See the full monthly estimate — hosting plus management — before anything is provisioned. No usage is metered until you confirm.

7. 7

   Deploy

   QIOI runs the deployment pipeline as an observable sequence of states, from provisioning through health checks to ready.

After you confirm, the deployment pipeline runs as a sequence of observable states — payment confirmed, queued, provisioning, network configuration, installation, domain configuration, SSL issuance, health checks, ready. You can watch each state in the dashboard as it happens.

Managing instances

Every instance exposes a defined set of actions from the dashboard. Routine actions run immediately; consequential actions do not.

Backups and restore

Backups run on the schedule defined by the application template — weekly on Launch, daily on Operate and above. Every backup is encrypted before it leaves the instance and stored off-instance, so an instance failure cannot take its backups with it.

Restoring replaces the current state of the instance with the selected backup. Because restore is destructive to current data, it requires confirmation, and QIOI recommends creating an on-demand snapshot before restoring.

Domains and SSL

Every instance gets a qioi.app subdomain with SSL issued automatically and renewed without intervention. Custom domains are supported on Operate and above: point your DNS at the address shown in the dashboard, and QIOI verifies the configuration and issues the certificate.

Certificate renewal is scheduled and monitored. If renewal fails, it surfaces as an alert before it becomes an outage.

Updates and rollback

Applications follow one of two update channels, set per instance: stable, which tracks tested current releases, and LTS, which stays on long-term-support versions for maximum consistency.

New upstream versions are staged and tested against the template before rollout. Updates roll out in stages rather than to all instances at once. If an update fails its health checks, the instance rolls back to the last known-good version — there are no half-upgraded services.

Billing

Billing combines hosting and management into one predictable line item per instance, invoiced monthly. The estimate shown in the deployment wizard is the price you pay — resource usage within plan limits is included.

Model API usage is billed separately, by your model provider, under your own API keys. QIOI never marks up model usage and never sees usage you do not route through a connected provider.

API reference

Template spec

Every application in the catalogue is defined as a structured template: container images, minimum resources, ports, volumes, environment variables, health checks, backup policy, and update channels. The dashboard, this documentation, and the deployment pipeline all render from the same definition — templates are metadata, not hardcoded pages.

The full template interface, with commentary on how new applications are added, is documented on the developers page.