An instance is a single self-managed installation of Plane on a private cloud or server that the Instance admin controls and administers. A single instance can house multiple workspaces.

There may also be cases where a user IRL is running multiple instances, e.g., when using Plane for several clients. An Instance admin role will have to be declared for each of those instances, but it is okay to use the same email address for all of them.

This role lets instance admins access /god-mode, a route for features that help them administer and govern their Plane instance better for all users of that instance.

New instances allow skipping going to God Mode and setting up your workspace instead. Whatever you choose after secure instance set-up, we highly recommend coming quickly to /god-mode to set up at least your SMTP server so your users can start getting invite emails to projects.

God Mode features a few screens as shown below.

  • General

    Your instance name, admin’s email address, and the provision to add other instance admins show up on this screen. There’s also an option to report anonymous usage data so we can learn from how you use Plane and ship better product.

  • Email Set up your SMTP server here so you can send essential emails—password resets, exports, changes to your instance—and Plane-enabled emails—onboarding, tips and tricks, new features— to all your users. Learn more here.

  • SSO and OAuth

    Control what SSO and OAuth services your users can use to log into their Plane account. You can also toggle magic links on and off from here. Learn more here.

This is where you will see new SSO services and custom OAuth configs in the future.

  • Artificial intelligence

    Plane supports the use of AI throughout your projects. For now, we support OpenAI’s APIs and keys. You can configure them here or leave them blank if you don’t wish to offer AI features to your users. Your Plane experience remains largely unchanged if you don’t set this up.

  • Images in Plane

    You can use your own third-party libraries to update images in project settings. Configure your Unsplash key here. When we add more image libraries, they will show up here.

Soon, we will introduce God Mode for our Cloud users as well so they can manage their workspaces better. To get notified about this, sign up here.

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Add instance admin

To grant a user full administrative access (including God mode) to your self-hosted Plane instance, you’ll need to assign them the Instance Admin role. Instance admins have unrestricted control over all configurations and settings within the instance.

To promote an existing user to Instance Admin, execute the following command in your terminal:

  docker exec <backend_container_name> /bin/bash -c "python manage.py create_instance_admin <user_email>"

Ensure that the provided email matches the user’s registered account. This command will instantly elevate their privileges to full administrative access.

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FAQs

KubernetesOverview