Getting started with Spacelift

Spacelift blends a regular CI's versatility with the methodological rigor of a specialized, security-conscious infrastructure tool.

In this guide we will briefly introduce some key concepts that you need to know to work with Spacelift. If you're ready to learn hands-on how Spacelift works, try Spacelift Learn.

Main concepts

• Stacks: Spacelift's central entity that connects to your source control repository and manages the state of infrastructure. Stacks also facilitate integration with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and other important Spacelift components.
• State management: Infrastructure states can be managed by your backend, or (for OpenTofu/Terraform projects) imported into Spacelift. You are not required to manage your state with Spacelift.
• Worker pools: The underlying compute used by Spacelift is called a worker, managed in groups known as worker pools. You need to provision at least one worker pool to use Spacelift. Spacelift provides public (managed by Spacelift) and private (hosted by you) worker pools.
• Policies: Policies provide a way to express rules as code to manage your IaC environment, and help make common decisions for login, access, and execution. Policies are based on the Open Policy Agent project and can be defined using its rule language Rego.
• Cloud integration: Spacelift provides native integration with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud (GCP). Integration with other cloud providers is also possible via OIDC Federation or programmatic connection with their identity services.
• VCS change workflow: Spacelift evaluates your version control system's (VCS's) pull requests (PRs) to provide a preview of changes being made to your infrastructure. These changes are deployed automatically when PRs are merged.

Create your Spacelift account

1. In the top-right of the Spacelift home page, click Free trial.
2. Select the region (Europe or United States) where your data will be hosted.

3. Create your Spacelift account by signing in with your GitHub, GitLab, Google, or Microsoft account.

   

   • GitHub: The selected GitHub organization or account name will be your Spacelift account name.
   • Microsoft: You may need to provide admin approval to log in.

Welcome to the LaunchPad

Once you log in to your Spacelift account, you will be brought to the LaunchPad tab to configure your environment. The LaunchPad contains four sections:

1. Learn: Contains several missions where you can go through guided lessons on how to set up and use Spacelift.
2. Knowledge base: Contains small chunks of the documentation around specific topics and links to this documentation site.
3. Watch videos: Contains several short videos covering small topics about Spacelift and setting up your infrastructure.
4. FAQ: Contains a list of common questions about Spacelift and IaC, and their answers.

Learn

Spacelift's Learn feature helps users gain hands-on experience in setting up, configuring, and using Spacelift.

Each Learn section is broken down as follows:

flowchart TD;
    A(Mission) --> B(Chapter 1)
    A --> C(Chapter 2)
    B --> D(Objective 1)
    B --> E(Objective 2)
    D --> I(Step 1)
    D --> J(Step 2)
    D --> M(Step 3)

• Missions: The top-level section and what you'll see on the LaunchPad, e.g. Foundations. These encompass missions to guide you through the learning process.
• Chapters: When you click on a mission, you'll see a list of one or more chapters, e.g. Getting Started.
• Objectives: When you click on a chapter, you'll see a list of one or more objectives, e.g. Ground Control - Create Your First Stack.
• Objective steps: Each objective includes several steps for you to perform within Spacelift, such as integrating your source code provider or cloud account.

When you start a mission, the Learn panel will remain to the right of the Spacelift navigation panel.

You can unpin it to have the objectives and objective steps in a floating panel anywhere on your screen.

Click Switch to AI chat at the top of the Learn panel to interact with Infra Assist, an AI-powered natural language chat that can answer your questions about infrastructure and how to accomplish tasks in Spacelift.

In the AI chat, click Switch to Learn mode at the top of the panel to return to your objective.

Available missions

1. Foundations: Learn how to create a stack, set up an AWS integration, deploy infrastructure, create and enforce policies, and configure stack dependencies.
   • Getting started
     • Ground Control - Create Your First Stack
     • Credentials, Not Secrets - AWS Integration
     • First Launch - Deploy Real Infrastructure
     • Guardrails - Enforce Policy Rules
     • Orbital Mechanics - Stack Dependencies
2. Operational safety: Learn how to set up policies (such as plan and approval), configure notifications, and set up webhooks.
   • Policies and Notifications
     • Launchpad - Quick Start
     • No Untagged Buckets - Plan Policies
     • Four Eyes - Approval Policies
     • Mission Control Knows - Notifications
     • Phone Home - Webhooks
3. Configuration reuse: Learn how to create reusable configurations with contexts, labels, autoattachment, and space inheritance.
   • Reusable configuration
     • Launchpad - Quick Start
     • Inline Configuration
     • Extract and Reuse with Contexts
     • Labels and Autoattachment
     • Space Inheritance - Config Flows Downhill
     • One Mechanism, Many Components
4. Delivery at Scale: Learn how to configure stack dependencies, pass data, set up your orchestration workflow, and go from staging to production.
   • Stack Orchestration
     • Launchpad - Quick Start
     • One Leads, One Follows - Stack Dependencies
     • Pass the Data - Output to Input Wiring
     • Wait, Skip, Proceed - Smart Orchestration
     • The Promotion Gate - Staging to Production