How It Works

Nullstone runs as a cloud service to manage your cloud infrastructure. Nullstone provides extensible blueprints and modules that developers can use to launch any app architecture. Nullstone orchestrates the launch, updating, and destroying of infrastructure in coordination with the deployment of application code. Nullstone securely wires the app with necessary datastore credentials, third-party API keys, IAM policies, firewalls, and much more.

Delivery To Your Cloud

All infrastructure is hosted in your cloud accounts. Nullstone does not host your infrastructure and does not have access to your data. In the rare event of Nullstone issues, your app remains unaffected.

Composable Infrastructure

The infrastructure provisioned by Nullstone is done so using Terraform modules. Each module is registered in the Nullstone registry and required to have a simple contract. This contract allows Nullstone to understand how to connect the modules together.

Custom Modules and Community

Nullstone comes with a large library of modules and Nullstone engineers continue to add modules to the registry on a regular basis. In addition to Nullstone engineers, users can also create and upload modules to the Nullstone registry. Modules registered as public can be shared amongst the community to create an ever-growing wealth of support for different technologies and scenarios. As long as a module satisfies the contract, it can be connected into your infrastructure or replace an existing module.

For a deeper dive into how Nullstone modules work as well as how to create your own, check out our guide on Extending Nullstone.

Automatic Self-Service

As modules are added to the Nullstone registry, they are automatically made available to developers for self-service. Through the contract for each module, Nullstone has enough information to dynamically present the necessary UI, options, and parameters for the module.

Tracking State

Everything that is provisioned via Nullstone is done so via modules. Nullstone keeps track of the Terraform state and ensures that it is kept in-sync across all of your users. Anything that Nullstone has provisioned, it can also manage and destroy.

While it certainly makes things easier if all of your infrastructure is provisioned using Nullstone, it is not necessary to get started. Many users start by migrating or launching parts of their infrastructure.

Nullstone API and CLI

The Nullstone web UI is powered by a full-featured API, so everything from the web UI can also be done via the API. If you ever have the need to automate parts of your infrastructure provisioning process, the API is a great option.

If you are more of a command line person, the Nullstone CLI may be the tool of choice for you. In addition to providing a friendly developer experience, the CLI also provides a simple and consistent way to deploy your applications. No matter what type of application or how it is hosted, it can be deployed with a single command.

Code Deployment

When you are ready to deploy your code, Nullstone provides 3 different options.

• Automatic deployment

  Nullstone will automatically build and deploy your application to your environment when you push to a branch.

• Custom CI/CD

  Plug in your own CI/CD processes and workflows. Nullstone provides CLI commands and quickstarts to make setting up CI/CD simple and straightforward.

• Manual deployment

  The Nullstone CLI provides a simple and consistent way to deploy your applications. No matter what type of application (container, serverless, or static site), it can be deployed with the same command.

For more information on how to deploy your code, check out our Code Deployment guide.

Ready to get started?

Head over to the Application Quickstarts to launch your first Nullstone app in just a few minutes.