Plan your deployment

Planning decides the shape of your deployment: which components run where, how large they need to be, and which choices are expensive to change later. Work through this phase before you pick a platform in Install the control plane.

What you decide here

• Topology: where the control plane, the database, and workspaces run, and whether workspaces run in the same region as their users. Refer to Architecture.
• Size: how much CPU, memory, and database capacity the deployment needs for the number of users you expect. Refer to Coder Validated Architecture.
• Provisioning model: whether workspace builds run on the control plane or on external provisioners, which matters when builds need credentials the control plane shouldn't hold.
• Network position: whether the deployment is reachable from the public internet, from a private network only, or is air-gapped.

Who to involve

The Coder platform owner drives this phase, but the topology and size decisions need the infrastructure team, and a network position decision usually needs a security reviewer. Bring them in now: these are the decisions that are hardest to revisit after installation.

Before you move on

You should be able to state, in a sentence each, where Coder will run, how many users it's sized for, and how users will reach it. If any of those are unclear, the answer usually lives in Architecture or in the Coder Validated Architecture reference designs.

Next: Prepare prerequisites.