Setup & Deployment

This is the plain-English overview of how you get from buying Acme Toolkit to a live deployment running on infrastructure you control. It is not an exhaustive runbook; the full step-by-step lives in the setup guide that ships inside the product.

What you get when you buy#

The moment you purchase, you receive two things by email:

1. A license key - your proof of purchase and the key that unlocks the developer guide and downloads.
2. The full source code - the complete application, yours to keep, modify, and deploy.

From there, the path is simple: download the source, run the guided setup, and deploy. Most people who are comfortable following technical instructions get to a working deployment in an afternoon.

Two ways to set it up#

You do not have to wire this together from memory. There are two supported paths, and you can mix them:

• The built-in setup guide. It walks you through the whole deployment in plain English, one step at a time, and waits for you at each step. It is designed for an operator, not just an engineer.
• Point a coding tool at the repo. If you use a coding assistant, you can open the project and ask it to set everything up. It reads the included instructions and does the configuration with you.

Either way, the included documentation covers each account you create and each value you need to set.

Where it runs#

Acme Toolkit is a modern web app. You deploy the application to a host of your choice and connect a managed backend for data and authentication.

• A managed backend is the default. It runs your database, the server-side logic, and authentication as one service, so backups, scaling, and uptime are handled for you.
• Self-host if you prefer. Because you have the full code, advanced users can run every layer on their own servers instead. That path is more work, and it is optional.

This is the honest version of self-hosting. You control the code and your data, and you choose where it is deployed.

What you need#

A realistic checklist before you start:

1. A hosting account - where the app is deployed. A free tier is plenty to start.
2. A backend or database account - for your data and server logic. The free tier comfortably covers a small project.
3. Your own domain - pointed at your deployment so the product lives on your brand.
4. An email service - Resend, Postmark, or similar, for transactional email (confirmations, reminders, notifications).
5. Optional provider accounts - add these when you need them, such as a payment processor if you want to sell or bill. None are required to get the core product running first.

What it costs to run#

For most projects, hosting runs on free or low-cost tiers to start and scales with usage from there. The usage-based services you connect (email, payments, and any third-party APIs) are billed by their providers at their own rates.

Roughly how long#

Plan for a couple of hours the first time, mostly spent creating accounts and pasting in credentials. The setup itself is guided; the time goes into the one-time configuration tasks (connecting providers, verifying your sending domain) that you do once and never touch again.

After it is live#

• Read the Architecture page if you want to understand the stack and how it is put together.
• Browse the Feature Overview for what each part of the product does.
• Check the Changelog to see what has shipped and how often.

You buy once, and you decide when to update. Nothing changes unless you pull it in.