What you need before you start
Three things: a repository you have admin on, a machine that can run a runner, and a model API key. The second one surprises people, so it is worth knowing before you begin rather than after.
Signing up takes a minute and asks for none of this. It is worth reading the list first anyway, because the second item is the one people meet at the end of an evening rather than the start of one.
- A repository, and admin on it
- Admin on the repository, or on the organisation that owns it. Without it you can still begin: installing on an organisation somebody else owns sends them a request, and nothing moves until they approve it. It does not have to be empty and it does not have to be tidy. It does have to have a default branch with something on it, because the first thing Nightshift does is read the tree.
- A machine for a runner
- The part people do not expect. Nightshift never holds your code: a runner you control clones the repository and does the work. It needs outbound network access, disk for a checkout, and to stay awake. A laptop that sleeps is a runner that is offline.
- A model API key
- Anthropic or OpenAI. The spend is yours and is not marked up through us. You can put the key on the runner, so it never leaves your machine, or store it in the account and have it sent to the runner per card.
You do not need a card written, a plan, or a tidy backlog. One repository and one piece of work is the whole first run. Nightshift writes the card from a paragraph of intent, which is most of what the product is for.
You do not need a credit card. One repository is free with no time limit, and nothing asks for payment details until you add a second.
The order that wastes the least time. Connect the repository first, because it is the step that can stall on somebody else approving it, and finding that out on Monday beats finding it out on Friday night.
- Connect the repository, and see whether it needs an owner’s approval.
- Get a runner going. Talk to us for this one; see below.
- Put the model key where you want it.
- Write one card, set the night window, and leave it.
On the runner, one thing to know now rather than later. The self-serve install is not published yet, so the first runner is something we set up with you rather than a page you follow. Write to [email protected] and say where you want it to run. Everything else on this list you can do without us.
This did not answer it? Write to us. A person reads every message.