Quick start

From an empty dashboard to an editor in a workspace, in three steps.

This assumes Lite is running and open at http://localhost — see Installation.

1. Check your SSH key

Open Settings. Lite lists the keys it found in ~/.ssh and which one it hands to workers. Add that key’s public half to your git host (GitHub, GitLab, a self-hosted forge…) if it isn’t there already: it is the only credential Lite uses to clone and push.

A key protected by a passphrase shows a passphrase badge: unlock it there once, or forward your host’s agent — see SSH keys and git. You can skip this step entirely for a project with no repository.

2. Create a project

Projects → New project. Either:

start from a template — Next.js, Vite + React, Astro, FastAPI, Express or Docker-in-Docker (base image, features and ports already filled in), or
fill in the form — a name, a base image (any image works; the devcontainer images are a good start, e.g. mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/typescript-node:22), and a repository by its clone URL, such as git@github.com:you/app.git.

Hooks are optional: postCreateCommand runs once when a workspace is created (install the dependencies), postStartCommand on every start (start the dev server). Saving the project creates version 1 and starts building its image in the background.

3. Launch a workspace

On the project page, New workspace. Optionally pick a branch to check out; otherwise each repository’s default branch is used. The worker goes through building (only the first time for a given version), starting (the setup script: clone, features, hooks) and ready.

Then:

Open IDE — VS Code in the browser at http://worker-<id>.localhost, opened on /workspace.
Terminal — the worker page’s terminal tab. It survives closing the tab: come back and the session, and its scrollback, are still there.
Ports — anything listening in the worker is at http://worker-<id>-<port>.localhost, declared or not.

When you’re done, Stop keeps the workspace’s disk for later; Delete removes the container and its volume.

What next

Change the project and launch again: a new version means a new image, and existing workers offer to update — see Projects.
Share one Postgres between all your projects: Shared services.
Delegate a change to an agent and review it: Agents.