Managed hosting

Tide's first managed-hosting implementation builds your game on your machine and uploads artifacts to a configured hosting service. Public hosted access is not launched yet. GitHub sign-in, Stripe prepaid credit and Fly.io are the selected initial providers.

Deploy a game

tide login
tide deploy

Approve the CLI login in your browser after checking its code. Hosting accounts are invite-only. By default, deployment builds a web client and a headless WASM server from the same resolved game, checks their generated simulation IDs and uploads both. It returns a playable URL, server endpoint and dashboard link. The service receives built artifacts; it does not compile uploaded source.

tide deploy --server-only
tide deploy --bundle-only
tide logout

--server-only omits the hosted web client. --bundle-only creates the local deployment bundle without logging in or uploading. The default folder is the current one; another folder can follow deploy.

On the first deploy, Tide uses a lowercase, hyphenated version of the folder name to create or reuse a Small project with one maximum active match. No dashboard setup is needed. It saves the project ID and service origin in tide.deploy.json in your game folder. Future deploys use this link, even if you rename the folder. You can commit it to keep the target with the game; it contains no credentials and grants no access to the project.

Use tide deploy --project <name-or-id> to select a different project and update the link. A missing name creates a project; an unavailable ID fails. An invalid link, a link to a different service or a project your account cannot access requires an explicit selection. The dashboard still lets you create a project with custom settings before deploying.

TIDE_HOSTING_URL selects another configured service origin. The operator setup is documented in the repository's hosting/README.md. A normal developer CLI credential expires after 30 days and can be revoked with tide logout.

Matches and versions

Each managed match owns a separate WASM instance, including its memory and C globals. The service can run several matches of the same game in one process. Views, the local menu, rendering and audio do not run on the server. Match Main is the default entry; games with a local menu select their match scene through the server entry callback.

An endpoint looks like ROOMID/0 to request a match, or ROOMID/<match-id> to join one. Match IDs route players; they are not authentication credentials. The default project allows client-requested creation within paid quotas. For trusted orchestration, disable client creation and issue a project-scoped runtime credential in the dashboard. It can control that project's matches through the HTTP API and cannot publish builds. Player-account authentication is separate and is not supplied by this first managed service.

Compatibility uses a generated Simulation ID, covering match code, its transitive helpers, schemas, defaults, settings, simulation assets and toolchain. Presentation-only edits can remain compatible. Custom C and libraries are fingerprinted conservatively, including all assets C could read. A different simulation is refused before match allocation/admission, with update guidance in Disconnected.message. Developers do not maintain a compatibility version number.

The Release ID names exact uploaded artifacts. A new release receives new matches; an existing world continues on its original release. The first version does not update a running production world or download native client code.

Lifetime, credit and recovery

Matches end after all player connections leave and the empty grace passes (60 seconds by default). A long-lived world can instead run until explicitly ended. Its owner can change this policy or suspend/end/resume a match through the dashboard/API. Admission remains separate from ending a world.

Hosting uses prepaid credit. The dashboard shows configured prices, capacity, WASM memory, sampled CPU use, logs, saves, incidents and billing history. At low credit it warns; exhaustion saves and suspends even long-lived worlds. Capacity, bandwidth, storage and operator limits also apply. Included allowances are hard limits, rather than automatic paid overages.

Select Add credit beside your balance, choose an amount and continue to Stripe Checkout. Credit appears after payment is confirmed. Sandbox payments are labeled and charge no real money. If payments are unavailable, the panel explains this instead of showing an empty amount selector.

Long-lived worlds save periodically and recover on the same release and match ID after a worker or host restart. Recovery has bounded retries and reports the save timestamp in the dashboard. Games can provide their own C save/load callbacks; without them, the service uses an exact-release checkpoint. There is no promised cross-release save migration. Players reconnect after recovery.

Saves of inactive worlds have finite retention, initially seven days, with a final-day dashboard warning. Download or resume a world before its save expires. An explicitly ended or payment-suspended world does not restart automatically. Email notifications, multiple host machines/regions and automatic top-ups are not implemented yet.