Provision & manage instances

Cloud instances are virtual machines that Sencai provisions and tracks on your behalf, running on your connected cloud provider account. See Connect a cloud provider first if you haven’t done that yet - a connected account is required before you can provision an instance. If you already have servers running on a provider, see Import existing infrastructure instead of recreating them here.

The instances list

Cloud Instances (/gravity/instances) shows every instance in the active organization - name, provider, region, type, status, IP address, monthly cost, and when it was created. From here you can search by name or IP, filter by provider or status, switch between table and card views, and open an instance to see its full detail.

Selected instances can be exported as a reviewable Terraform (.tf) file - useful if you want a portable record of what Sencai provisioned, without credentials embedded in the output.

Provisioning a new instance

New instance opens a five-step wizard (/gravity/instances/new):

Provider - pick one of the supported cloud providers. If your organization’s instance limit for its plan is already reached, this step tells you so before you go any further.
Region & instance type - choose a region, then an instance size from a table of vCPU/RAM/disk/price options for that provider and region.
Configuration:
- Cloud account - which of your connected credentials to provision into. This is required; Sencai always provisions into an account you control, never a Sencai-owned default.
- Name - lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, 2–48 characters.
- Tags - free-form labels for organizing and finding instances later.
- SSH public key (optional) and an advanced cloud-init script field are both available and saved with the instance’s configuration. Whether either one is actually applied to the server at boot isn’t guaranteed for every provider today - verify access after provisioning rather than assuming it ran. Sencai separately sets up its own access account on every instance it provisions, independent of these two fields, which is what the browser terminal uses.
- Operating system - a list of images for the chosen provider, with LTS releases marked.
- Storage - a root disk (minimum 30 GB) plus any number of additional data disks, each with its own size and type.
- Oracle Cloud additionally requires an existing subnet OCID - Oracle doesn’t let Sencai create a virtual network for you, so you supply one from your own OCI console.
Network (optional) - attach the instance to an existing network and subnet, or leave it on the provider’s default networking.
Review - confirm every setting, including the estimated monthly cost, then provision.

Provisioning is asynchronous - the instance moves through a Provisioning state before becoming Running, and every step is tracked so you can see exactly what’s happening rather than staring at a spinner. Every provisioning action is recorded in your organization’s audit log, including which user triggered it.

Instance states

State	Meaning
Pending	Queued for provisioning
Provisioning	Being created
Running	Fully operational - stop, restart, resize, or terminate are available
Starting / Stopping	Transitioning power state
Stopped	Powered off
Terminating	Being permanently destroyed
Imported	Adopted from your provider account rather than provisioned by Sencai
Failed	Provisioning or an operation failed - check the instance’s activity log for the provider’s own error message

If an instance is stuck in Provisioning or lands in Failed, the most common cause is the connected cloud account - an invalid credential, an account-level quota at the provider, or (for Oracle) a missing subnet. Check Connect a cloud provider to confirm the credential still validates.

The instance detail page

Opening an instance (/gravity/instances/[id]) shows tabs for:

Overview - networking (IPv4/IPv6/external ID), billing, and ownership details.
Resources - related managed resources for this instance.
Agent - enroll the fleet agent on this instance, or view its status if one is already connected.
Software - installed package inventory and end-of-life warnings, once a fleet agent is reporting.
Backups - backup status where the provider and configuration support it.
Logs - recent log lines shipped by the fleet agent, once one is enrolled.
Monitoring - a link into the platform’s monitoring view for this instance.
Activity - a running history of actions taken on the instance.

Lifecycle actions

From an instance’s detail page or the list’s row menu:

Start / Stop - available once the instance is running or stopped, on most providers. Scaleway, OVHcloud, and UpCloud instances don’t support a power stop/start through Sencai today - terminate is still available for those.
Resize - change to a different instance type. Not available while Hetzner is the provider (Hetzner instance types are fixed at creation); available for other providers while the instance is running or stopped.
Terminate - permanently destroys the instance. You’re asked to type the instance’s name to confirm - this can’t be undone.
Restart and retry-after-failure are not available yet; both show as disabled with a “coming soon” label.

All lifecycle actions go through the same provider connection that created the instance, and all of them are audited.

Browser terminal

If the instance is Running (or was brought in through import and has a connection target configured), a Terminal button opens a browser-based session - no local SSH client or key management needed. See Remote access for how this works and what it requires.

Tags and cost

Tags set at creation (or added later) help you organize instances and appear in cost allocation views, so it’s worth tagging consistently - by environment, team, or project - rather than leaving instances untagged.

What’s next

Import existing infrastructure - bring servers you already run under Sencai management instead of recreating them
Remote access - connect to an instance without a local SSH client
Networks - VPCs and subnets you can attach instances to
Cost allocation - how instances factor into your organization’s spend