Quickstart

This page walks through the first person account, the first machine identity and the first upload in a cell. Your operator gives you the cell’s address and console.

1. Join with a passkey

1. Ask your administrator for an invite code. It is valid for 72 hours and shown once.
2. Open Server settings in the console and connect to the cell’s address.
3. Enter the invite code and press Create passkey and join. Your device creates a passkey; there is no password.

Tip

Sessions last at most 12 hours and end after 30 idle minutes. Approvals, invites and identity changes ask you to confirm with your passkey again within the last five minutes.

2. Request a machine identity

Your uploading system connects with a machine identity.

1. An administrator requests the identity on the Identities page: a name, scopes (for example ingest:write and status:read) and an optional IP allow list.
2. A second person outside the requester’s control chain approves it on the Approvals page.
3. The requesting administrator issues a bootstrap code. It is valid for 24 hours, shown once, and works only while the identity holds no certificate.

3. Get a certificate with reindeerctl

The key is generated on the machine and never leaves it.

export REINDEER_SERVER=https://your-cell.example.tr
reindeerctl keygen -key uploader.key
REINDEER_BOOTSTRAP_CODE=<code> reindeerctl bootstrap -ca server-ca.pem -key uploader.key -out uploader.crt

The certificate is valid for seven days. Renew it from a timer before it expires:

reindeerctl renew -cert uploader.crt -key uploader.key -out uploader.crt

4. Upload a first batch

A batch is an NDJSON file with one JSON record per line. In this example the records are orders:

{"order_id": "o-5531", "buyer_id": "u-77", "placed_at": "2026-10-07T09:12:00Z", "total": 1840}

export REINDEER_CERT=uploader.crt REINDEER_KEY=uploader.key REINDEER_CA=server-ca.pem
reindeerctl session open -partition orders -mode initial -id /order_id -author /buyer_id -ts /placed_at -ts-format rfc3339
reindeerctl dry-run -session <session> orders.ndjson
reindeerctl upload -session <session> -n 1 -zstd orders.ndjson
reindeerctl session commit <session>

The pointers name each record’s id, owner and time; the time format may be rfc3339, unix, unix_ms or twitter. Without pointers reindeerctl assumes the tweet format (/id_str, /user/id_str, /created_at, twitter). The commit returns a signed receipt.

5. Read and verify

reindeerctl changes -cursor head -limit 100
reindeerctl audit keys

Keep the public keys printed by audit keys outside the cell; you verify receipts and erasure certificates against them. See Audit and verification.