Quickstart Guide

0 Overview

CloudNexus provides a complete cloud infrastructure platform with global reach, enterprise-grade security, and developer-friendly tooling. In this quickstart, you'll learn how to:

• Install the CloudNexus CLI on your machine
• Authenticate your account with API keys
• Create a project and configure it for your app
• Deploy a sample application to a live server
• Set up monitoring and access your deployment dashboard

0 Prerequisites

Before getting started, make sure you have the following:

• A CloudNexus account (sign up for free to get $200 in credits)
• Node.js 18+ or Python 3.9+ installed locally
• A terminal or command-line interface
• Git installed for version control workflows
• Basic familiarity with command-line operations

1 Install the CloudNexus CLI

The CloudNexus CLI (cnx) is your primary interface for managing projects, deploying applications, and monitoring infrastructure.

Install via Package Manager

$ npm install -g @cloudnexus/cli

$ brew tap cloudnexus/tap
$ brew install cnx

$ curl -fsSL https://apt.cloudnexus.com/key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/cloudnexus-archive-keyring.gpg
$ echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudnexus-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.cloudnexus.com stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudnexus.list
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install cnx

$ curl -fsSL https://get.cloudnexus.com/install | bash

Verify Installation

$ cnx --version
cnx v3.2.1 (CloudNexus CLI)
https://cloudnexus.com/docs/cli

2 Authenticate Your Account

Log in to your CloudNexus account using your API key. You can generate one from the CloudNexus Dashboard → API Keys.

$ cnx auth login
Enter your API key (from dashboard):  cnx_••••••••••••••••
✓ Authenticated as: alex@example.com
✓ Default region: us-east-1

Environment Variable Authentication

For CI/CD pipelines, set your API key as an environment variable instead:

export CNX_API_KEY="cnx_live_abc123def456..."
export CNX_DEFAULT_REGION="us-east-1"

# Verify authentication
$ cnx auth whoami
✓ alex@example.com (Team: acme-corp)

Key Types

3 Create Your First Project

Projects are the top-level organization unit in CloudNexus. Each project can contain multiple deployments, services, and databases.

Interactive Project Creation

$ cnx project create
? Project name: myapp
? Region: us-east-1 (Virginia)
? Team: acme-corp
? Plan: free

✓ Project created: myapp
  Project ID:  proj_8x7k2m4n9p
  Dashboard:  https://dashboard.cloudnexus.com/proj_8x7k2m4n9p
  DNS:        myapp.cloudnexus.app

Using the CLI Non-Interactively

$ cnx project create --name "myapp" --region us-east-1 --json
{"id": "proj_8x7k2m4n9p", "name": "myapp", "region": "us-east-1"}

4 Configure Your Application

Create a cnx.config.js file in your project root. This file tells CloudNexus how to build and deploy your application.

export default {
  name: "myapp",
  project: "proj_8x7k2m4n9p",
  region: "us-east-1",
  framework: "node",
  build: {
    command: "npm run build",
    output: "./dist",
    nodeVersion: "18",
  },
  deploy: {
    instances: 2,
    cpu: "1",
    memory: "2Gi",
    port: 3000,
    autoScale: {
      min: 2,
      max: 10,
      targetCPU: 70,
    },
  },
  env: {
    NODE_ENV: "production",
    DATABASE_URL: { secret: "cnx_db_url" },
  },
  healthcheck: {
    path: "/health",
    interval: "30s",
  },
};

from cnx_sdk import Config, Deployment, Scaling

config = Config(
    name="myapp",
    framework="python",
    python_version="3.11",
    build="pip install -r requirements.txt",
    start="gunicorn app:app --bind 0.0.0.0:8000",
)

deploy = Deployment(
    instances=2,
    cpu="1",
    memory="2Gi",
    scaling=Scaling(min=2, max=10),
)

export default {
  name: "myapp",
  project: "proj_8x7k2m4n9p",
  builder: "docker",
  dockerfile: "./Dockerfile",
  deploy: {
    instances: 3,
    cpu: "2",
    memory: "4Gi",
  },
  healthcheck: {
    command: "curl -f http://localhost:8080/health || exit 1",
  },
};

Configuration Reference

5 Deploy Your Application

With your configuration in place, deploy with a single command. CloudNexus handles building, containerizing, and provisioning infrastructure automatically.

$ cnx deploy
⠋ Reading configuration...
⠋ Building project (Node.js 18)...
⠋ Installing dependencies...
⠋ Running build command: npm run build
⠋ Optimizing assets...
✓ Build completed in 12.4s

⠋ Pushing image to cnx-registry.us-east-1...
✓ Image pushed (sha256:a3f8...c912)

⠋ Provisioning 2 instances...
⠋ Running health checks...
✓ Instance 1: healthy (23ms)
✓ Instance 2: healthy (19ms)

✓ Deployed successfully!
  URL:      https://myapp.cloudnexus.app
  Region:   us-east-1
  Deploy:   #42 — abc1234
  Duration: 18.7s
  Dashboard: https://dashboard.cloudnexus.com/proj_8x7k2m4n9p/deployments/42

Deploy Options

1. Standard deploy — cnx deploy pushes the latest code and builds from source.
2. Preview deploy — cnx deploy --preview creates an isolated environment linked to your PR/branch for review.
3. Canary deploy — cnx deploy --canary 20% routes 20% of traffic to the new version for gradual rollout.
4. Rollback — cnx deploy --rollback quickly reverts to the previous stable deployment.

6 Monitor Your Application

Once deployed, CloudNexus provides real-time monitoring, logs, and performance metrics out of the box.

View Live Logs

$ cnx logs --follow
[instance-1] 2025-12-15 14:32:01 INFO  Server started on port 3000
[instance-1] 2025-12-15 14:32:05 INFO  Connected to database
[instance-2] 2025-12-15 14:32:06 INFO  Server started on port 3000
[instance-1] 2025-12-15 14:33:12 GET  /api/users  200  23ms
[instance-2] 2025-12-15 14:33:15 GET  /api/products  200  18ms
[instance-1] 2025-12-15 14:33:22 POST /api/orders  201  142ms

Check Resource Usage

$ cnx status
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  myapp — proj_8x7k2m4n9p                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Status:    ● Online                            │
│  Region:    us-east-1                           │
│  Instances: 2/2 healthy                         │
│  CPU:       34% avg (1-58% range)               │
│  Memory:    1.2Gi / 2Gi (62%)                   │
│  Requests:  1,247/min avg                       │
│  Latency:   p50=12ms p99=89ms                   │
│  Uptime:    14d 6h 23m                          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Scaling Commands

# Scale to 5 instances manually
$ cnx scale --instances 5

# Enable auto-scaling based on CPU
$ cnx autoscale enable --min 2 --max 20 --target-cpu 65

# View auto-scaling metrics
$ cnx autoscale status
✓ Auto-scaling: enabled
  Current: 3 instances | Min: 2 | Max: 20
  Avg CPU: 42% (scaling down in 5 min)

Next Steps

Congratulations! 🎉 You've deployed your first application on CloudNexus. Here are some recommended next steps:

1. Set up a custom domain — Bind a custom domain with automatic SSL provisioning.
2. Connect a managed database — Deploy PostgreSQL or MySQL with one command.
3. Configure CI/CD — Integrate with GitHub Actions or GitLab CI for automated deployments.
4. Explore Kubernetes — Deploy containerized workloads with managed Kubernetes clusters.