Overview

Starform is a developer-focused Platform-as-a-Service: a developer connects a Git repo, pushes code, and Starform builds it into a container image and runs it on managed Kubernetes with databases, object storage, environment variables, observability, and usage-based billing attached. It targets professional developers shipping production code (often AI-assisted), and competes with Railway, Render, and Fly.io. The platform runs on DigitalOcean (DOKS) at launch, with a ports/adapters design that keeps it cloud-portable for later geographic expansion.

The system has two halves: a control plane (Starbase) that decides what should run, and a per-cluster agent (Shuttle) that makes each cluster match that decision. The guiding rule throughout is "Starbase decides, Shuttle applies."

This Overview tab is the orientation on-ramp. Use the left sidebar for the anatomy of a deploy, MVP scope, the naming system, system topology, binaries & repos, cluster topology, the tech stack, and the scaling model.

Cross-references

The single thread end-to-end → Anatomy of a Deploy · component names → Naming & Components · the two binaries → Binaries & Repos · desired state → §32. Canonical map: Canonical Sources.