drift Docs
Start
What is Drift?
The tour, if you are new here.
Why Drift?
Two reasons, and they are independent.
The case for a small cloud
What disappears, and what it costs you.
Made in Europe
Built, hosted and owned in the EU.
Use cases
Whether Drift does your thing.
Getting started
Nothing to deployed, in one command.
Architecture
How a slice is put together.
What it costs
The free grant, four unit prices, two rules.
Build
Atomic
Serverless functions.
Write a function
The handler shape, and what you pay for.
Six languages
Go, Python, Node, Ruby, PHP, Rust.
Runtime versions
Which interpreter version your function runs on.
Authentication
The auth= gate, and per-route API keys.
Request headers
What reaches your handler, and what does not.
Triggers
Queue-triggered and scheduled functions.
Streaming
SSE and WebSocket from one function.
Outbound egress
What a slice may dial.
Memory and concurrency
What a booking buys, and what happens at the edge of it.
Limits and alerts
Timeout, memory and rate, and being told.
Elements
One language, one manifest, many functions.
The CLI surface
Every drift atomic command.
Backbone
Secrets, data, blobs, queues.
NoSQL
JSON collections, upserted on _id.
SQL
Per-slice SQLite, with transactions.
Blobs
Files and uploads, organised by bucket.
Secrets
Encrypted config a function declares.
Queues
FIFO messages that trigger functions.
Cache
Key/value strings with a TTL.
Locks
Stop two workers doing one job.
Realtime
In-slice pub/sub over WebSocket.
Canvas
Static sites, same origin as your API.
Deed
Identity, devices and wallets.
KeyAuth
Passwordless login with device keys.
JWT
Sign and verify with the slice's own key.
Vault
Ciphertext the slice cannot read.
Link
Enroll a second device by attestation.
Pocket
E2EE app data that follows an identity.
Tools
CLI
One binary, every noun.
Reference
The binary, and every noun.
account
Sign up, log in, delete.
slice
Create, resize, snapshot, domains.
file
Lint it, apply it, run it.
atomic
One function at a time.
backbone
Reach into the data plane.
deed
One read-only status command.
canvas
Deploy a static site.
migrate
Move off another cloud.
doctor
Explain a failure code, offline.
Dashboard
What bare drift opens.
SDK
Six languages, zero dependencies.
Writing a handler
Arguments, request, return.
API reference
Both namespaces, every call.
NoSQL
Documents, by _id or storage key.
SQL
Queries and transactions.
Cache
Strings with a TTL.
Secrets
Read what the function declared.
Blobs
Bytes, addressed bucket/key.
Queues
Push, and pull if you must.
Locks
A token you hand back.
Realtime
Publish, and count who heard.
Deed
KeyAuth, JWT, Vault, Link, Pocket.
Utilities
Logs, egress, cross-slice calls.
Languages
The same handler, six ways.
Driftfile
One file that describes your app.
Anatomy
Every top-level key, and the name rules.
A worked example
One app with every section written out.
Atomic
Function limits, schedules, alerts, egress.
Backbone
Collections, databases, buckets, secrets.
Canvas
Sites, and the route each mounts on.
Domains
Custom hostnames the slice answers on.
Environments
One project, several slices, one file.
Deploying
Lint it, hook a build on, read its errors.
Operate
Auth
Route gates, API keys and your account.
Security
Boundaries, sandboxing and hardening.
Troubleshooting
Error codes
What went wrong, and what to do about it.
Legal
Acceptable use
What a slice may not be used for.
Data processing
The DPA, and every sub-processor.

drift migrate

Move off another cloud. Every step runs locally, with your own provider login, Drift never holds your credentials or your data. The first provider is Azure; see the migration guide for the whole story.

Command Description
drift migrate azure estimate -g <rg> [--json] [--csv] [--dry-run]Read-only: map an Azure resource group's cost to the equivalent Drift slice
drift migrate azure snapshot -g <rg> -o <dir> [--deref-secrets] [--source app=dir]Read-only: pull function source, Cosmos documents, blobs, queue messages, $web sites, and app settings into a vendor-neutral folder
drift migrate azure transform -i <dir> -o <dir>Offline: rewrite the export into a deployable Drift project (validated Driftfile + scaffolds)
drift migrate azure apply -i <dir> [--accept-refusals]Deploy the workspace; hard-refuses anything in REFUSED.md unless --accept-refusals

The first two are read-only against your provider, and transform touches no network at all so you can run the whole assessment before deciding anything.

estimate --dry-run prints the az commands it would run and fetches nothing; --json/--csv change only the output format. snapshot writes app settings as secret names, never values, unless --deref-secrets asks for the plaintext too, in which case it lands on disk mode 0600, unencrypted. --source <app>=<dir> skips live retrieval for a function app you already have a local copy of, which works regardless of plan type. snapshot also needs mongoexport on your machine to read a Cosmos account's data, and squashfs-tools for Linux Consumption source; a missing one fails loudly with the command that installs it.

Nothing deploys while REFUSED.md still has entries.

transform writes it listing what it would not translate, and apply refuses to deploy while anything is on it. That is deliberate: a migration that silently drops a resource is worse than one that stops and names it.