Quick start

Let an AI build it

podium create "A timeclock for employees in Django"

Describe what you want in plain English. Podium wraps your idea in platform instructions and hands it to your configured AI CLI.

From there the work is split, and the split is the point:

Podium creates the project, creates and wires the database, installs the framework or app, generates the .env, assigns the hostname, starts the container, and hands back a working URL.
The AI only customizes what’s on top — models, routes, templates, business logic — then updates the project README with the URL and any credentials.

The agent never has to work out how to wire nginx, pick a port, or provision a database. It calls one Podium command and gets a running project back, which is where the prompt and token savings come from.

podium create "A customer check-in system in Laravel"
podium create "An inventory tracker in Express"
podium create "New Grafana"
podium create "https://github.com/monicahq/monica"

Run it bare and it asks what you want to build:

podium create

Long prompts can come from a file or stdin:

podium create -f spec.md
podium create < spec.md
cat spec.md | podium create

Set your agent first with podium ai-set. See AI workflow for the full picture.

Or scaffold it yourself

Framework first, then name:

podium new laravel my-shop
podium new django survey-app
podium new flask my-api
podium new express my-service

The database is auto-selected per framework (PHP/Node → MySQL, Python → PostgreSQL). Override it:

podium new flask notes --database sqlite
podium new express api --database postgres

Full list of frameworks and options: Frameworks.

Or install something ready-made

podium install grafana
podium install gitea
podium install n8n

Fully configured and reachable at http://grafana/ in under two minutes. Browse all 100+: App library.

new vs install: new scaffolds an empty project you write. install deploys a finished app someone else wrote. If you guess wrong, Podium tells you the right command.

Or bring an existing project

# clone a repo and adapt it
podium clone work-directly https://github.com/user/my-app
podium clone fork https://github.com/user/my-app
podium clone new-repo https://github.com/user/my-app my-app

# already have the folder in ~/podium-projects/
podium setup my-project
podium up my-project

Podium adapts a project’s existing docker-compose.yaml automatically — bundled databases are removed and repointed at the shared services, and the original is preserved as docker-compose.upstream.yaml. See Architecture → Compose adaptation.

Daily driving

podium up my-project      # start one project (shared services start too)
podium up-all             # start everything
podium down my-project    # stop one project
podium down-all           # stop everything (shared services keep running)
podium status             # what's running
podium stop-services      # stop the shared services too

Your project is at http://my-project/ in any browser on the machine.