🚀 Quick Start

Since Crate is a fully managed platform, there is nothing to install. Getting started takes less than 2 minutes.

1. Log in to the Dashboard

Access the Crate Dashboard and sign in with your account. You’ll be greeted by your organization overview.

2. Add a Custom Domain

Navigate to the Domains tab and click New Domain. Enter your domain name (e.g., api.myapp.com).

You will be provided with a TXT record for verification and a CNAME record for routing. Add these to your DNS provider, then click Verify. Once verified, Crate automatically provisions SSL.

3. Create a Route

After your domain has been verified, click the domain card to enter the routing setup.

• Path: /* (or specific paths like /api/*)
• Destination: Your backend URL.

[!TIP] Every route defaults to the backend and rate limits configured on the domain. You only need to specify them here if you want to override the defaults for a specific path.

🖥️ Dashboard

Crate’s managed dashboard provides a point-and-click way to manage your API Gateway.

Organisation Overview

When you first log in, you’ll see your Organization Overview. This displays an overview of your active domains, total requests, and any active alerts.

Domain Management

The Domains tab is where you manage your hostnames. From there, you can:

• Add New Domains: For custom APIs or branding.
• Verification Status: Monitor TXT and CNAME verification.
• SSL Status: See when your certificates were issued and when they will renew.

Rule Configuration

Clicking on a domain allows you to configure specific Rules. You can specify:

• Path matching: Static or wildcard.
• Backend destination: Local or remote.
• Rate limiting: Override domain defaults for specific paths.
• Middleware: Enable authentication or transformation plugins.

🌐 Domains & SSL

Crate provides a zero-config SSL experience, handling everything from certificate issuance to automatic renewal without any manual intervention.

Verification Process

To ensure you own the domain, Crate uses a dual-verification strategy:

• Ownership (TXT): Add a specific TXT record to your DNS (e.g., _crate-verification=xyz).
• Routing (CNAME): Point your domain/subdomain to our global edge via a CNAME record.

Automatic SSL (ACME)

Once verified, Crate leverages the ACME protocol (Let’s Encrypt) to provision certificates. We support HTTP-01 challenges, which are automatically served by our edge nodes at /.well-known/acme-challenge/.

• Zero Downtime: Certificates are renewed 30 days before expiration.
• Security: Private keys are stored in encrypted hardware security modules (HSM) and are never exposed to your application code.
• Global Propagation: New certificates propagate across our global network in under 60 seconds.

🔔 Alerting

Monitor your traffic in real-time and get notified instantly when anomalies occur.

Supported Metrics

• Error Count (5xx/4xx): Absolute number of errors.
• Error Rate (5xx/4xx): Percentage of error requests.
• Rate Spike: Sudden jumps in error rates.
• Traffic Drop/Spike: Unusual surges or falls in total requests.

Configuring Alert Rules

Alert rules are configured per organization and can be scoped to specific domains or even individual paths. Choose your Scope, set Thresholds, and choose your Notification Channels (e.g. Email).

🛡️ Org & Security

Robust controls for team collaboration and administrative oversight.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

• Admin: Full control, including billing.
• Member: Manage domains, rules, and alerts.
• Viewer: Read-only access.

Audit Logs

Every administrative action is recorded in an immutable audit trail.

• Actor: Who performed the action.
• Metadata: Detailed JSON payload of the changes.
• Context: IP Address and User Agent of the requester.

Logs are retained for 90 days and can be exported in JSON or CSV format.