Setup guide

This is the end-to-end walkthrough, from a blank AWS account to a running Fargate task you can connect to from your game client, plus the optional Discord bot. Allow ~15–20 minutes the first time; most of that is waiting for the infrastructure apply.

Every step after creating the IAM user happens inside the app — there is no separate CLI tool to install, configure, or run. The in-app setup wizard bootstraps AWS resources and initializes the Pulumi stack; the Infrastructure page then plans and applies the actual game-server infrastructure.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Notes
Node.js	24+	Matches engines.node in the root package.json, docs/package.json, and scripts/package.json, and the version every CI workflow runs. Not enforced at boot — the backend does not check the Node version — but nothing is tested below 24.
npm	10+	Ships with Node 24.

There is no separate infrastructure or AWS CLI prerequisite. The desktop app talks to AWS directly via the SDK, and Pulumi's engine is provisioned automatically by the app itself (see step 2) — there is nothing to install manually.

On the AWS side you need:

• An AWS account you control (pure personal use is fine).
• A Route 53 hosted zone you already own — e.g. yourdomain.com. The infra program looks it up as a data source and will not create it for you. If you use an external registrar, delegate the zone's NS records to Route 53 before your first apply or DNS updates will go nowhere.

1. Create and authorise an IAM user

You don't need to touch the IAM console. Launch the app and follow the wizard — step 2 of 5 does this for you: it renders a CloudFormation template, opens the AWS console pre-scoped to the region you chose, and you upload the template and create the stack. Paste the resulting bootstrap access key back into the wizard and the app immediately mints its own key from that same principal, verifies it works, and revokes the bootstrap key — a mint-then-revoke rotation, so the credential the app ends up holding is never the one that was briefly visible in the CloudFormation stack's Outputs.

Manual fallback

Prefer not to use guided setup, already have credentials, or hit an edge case guided setup doesn't cover? Choose I already have credentials on the wizard's guided-IAM step to skip straight to the credentials step, and set up the IAM user by hand instead:

1. In the AWS IAM console → Users → Create user, give it a name like hyveon.
2. On the permissions step, choose Attach policies directly and skip through without selecting any managed policy. Create the user.
3. Open the new user → Permissions → Add permissions → Create inline policy → JSON. Paste the policy below, name it HyveonDeployAll, and save.
4. Security credentials → Create access key → Command Line Interface (CLI). Copy the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. Treat the secret like a password — AWS will not show it again. You'll paste these into the in-app setup wizard's credentials step (or point the wizard at an existing AWS CLI profile instead, if you already have one).

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonDeploy",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ecs:*",
        "elasticfilesystem:*",
        "ec2:*",
        "lambda:*",
        "logs:*",
        "cloudwatch:*",
        "events:*",
        "scheduler:*",
        "route53:*",
        "dynamodb:*",
        "secretsmanager:*",
        "s3:*",
        "cloudfront:*",
        "acm:*"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonIAM",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:*",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/hyveon-*",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:policy/hyveon-*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonIAMSimulate",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:user/${aws:username}"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonConfigurationBucket",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:GetObjectVersion",
        "s3:GetBucketVersioning",
        "s3:PutBucketVersioning",
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:PutLifecycleConfiguration",
        "s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration",
        "s3:PutBucketPublicAccessBlock"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::${project_name}-config",
        "arn:aws:s3:::${project_name}-config/*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonStateBucket",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:PutBucketVersioning",
        "s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration",
        "s3:PutBucketPublicAccessBlock"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::${project_name}-tfstate",
        "arn:aws:s3:::${project_name}-tfstate/*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonServiceLinkedRoles",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/ecs.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForECS*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": { "iam:AWSServiceName": "ecs.amazonaws.com" }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "HyveonServiceLinkedRoleRead",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:GetRole",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/ecs.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForECS*"
    }
  ]
}

Why one inline policy instead of stacking managed policies? AWS caps each user at 10 directly-attached managed policies, and this stack touches ~14 services. One inline policy also keeps the full blast radius visible in one place. Trade-off: you lose AWS's auto-maintenance of action lists, but since everything is {service}:* there is nothing to maintain.

iam:* is scoped to project-prefixed ARNs, not Resource: *, to avoid granting iam:PassRole on every role in the account. The hyveon-* prefix matches the default project name. If you change the project name in the wizard, update the two ARN patterns in HyveonIAM to match.

HyveonIAMSimulate grants the setup wizard's own permission check. The wizard's iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy self-check (IamCheckService) always targets the calling principal's own ARN, so the ${aws:username} policy variable scopes this to exactly that principal rather than every IAM user in the account. Without it, the check gets AccessDenied and silently degrades to a warning.

HyveonConfigurationBucket scopes access to the JSON configuration bucket the setup wizard's bootstrap step creates (default name ${project_name}-config; it holds the versioned deployment-config.json object). It grants object read/write/list/versioning access plus the bucket-config actions (PutLifecycleConfiguration, PutEncryptionConfiguration, PutBucketPublicAccessBlock, PutBucketVersioning/GetBucketVersioning, GetBucketLocation) the bootstrap step needs to configure the bucket's lifecycle rule (expiring noncurrent versions after 90 days), public-access block, and versioning. Although s3:* in HyveonDeploy already covers these actions on every bucket, this statement documents the specific dependency and scopes it to just the two configuration-bucket ARNs. If you rename this bucket, update the two ARN patterns in HyveonConfigurationBucket to match.

HyveonStateBucket scopes the specific permissions Pulumi's self-managed S3 state backend needs on ${project_name}-tfstate — the bucket the setup wizard's bootstrap step creates to hold Pulumi state. s3:ListBucket (bucket-level) plus s3:GetObject/s3:PutObject/ s3:DeleteObject (object-level) are exactly what Pulumi's DIY S3 backend needs to read and write state objects and its own lock objects — there is no DynamoDB lock table, since Pulumi's self-managed S3 backend stores its lock as an object in the same bucket rather than a companion table. s3:PutBucketVersioning and s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration are what the bootstrap step's ensureStateBucket call uses to enable versioning and default (AES256) encryption on this bucket; s3:PutBucketPublicAccessBlock lets it harden the bucket against public access, the same as it already does for the configuration bucket. As with HyveonConfigurationBucket, s3:* in HyveonDeploy already covers all of this on every bucket — this statement documents the specific dependency and scopes it to just the two state-bucket ARNs. If you rename this bucket, update the two ARN patterns in HyveonStateBucket to match.

Two permission areas are not covered by any AWS managed policy and are explicitly included above to avoid AccessDenied during an apply:

• EventBridge tag operations — the AWS provider tags EventBridge rules on creation, which requires events:TagResource, events:UntagResource, and events:ListTagsForResource. events:* above already grants these — if you tighten the policy later, keep those three actions in.
• EventBridge Scheduler — the FileBrowser helper's auto-stop schedule is a one-time scheduler.amazonaws.com schedule, a distinct service (and IAM action prefix) from the events:* EventBridge rules above. scheduler:* grants scheduler:CreateSchedule/scheduler:DeleteSchedule; iam:* (scoped to hyveon-* roles in HyveonIAM) covers the iam:PassRole the app needs to hand the schedule its execution role.
• CloudFront — the Discord interactions endpoint is fronted by a CloudFront distribution. cloudfront:* above covers creation, updates, tagging, and deletion of distributions.
• ACM (Certificate Manager) — CloudFront's custom domain (discord.{hosted_zone_name}) needs a DNS-validated ACM certificate, always provisioned in us-east-1 regardless of your chosen region. This needs acm:RequestCertificate, acm:DescribeCertificate, acm:AddTagsToCertificate, and acm:DeleteCertificate at minimum; acm:* above covers all of it. ACM certificate ARNs aren't predictable before creation (unlike the project-prefixed IAM roles/policies in HyveonIAM), so this is scoped like cloudfront:*/route53:* above — Resource: "*" within the HyveonDeploy statement, not a separate ARN-scoped statement.

HYVEON_DEPLOY_ALL_ACTIONS in app/packages/shared/src/iamPolicy.ts is the single source of truth for IAM permissions — this JSON block is generated from it, not the other way around. If you need to add or remove permissions, update HYVEON_DEPLOY_ALL_ACTIONS there, not this documentation; do not create separate inline policies or update the README independently. Two things in the app are generated from that same shared source: the in-app setup wizard's IAM permission check (see step 2) simulates every action in it against your credentials, and the guided-IAM step's CloudFormation template generates its HyveonDeployAll managed policy from it too — so the permissions the guided flow provisions can never drift from what the wizard check simulates. This JSON block itself is test-locked against HYVEON_DEPLOY_ALL_ACTIONS (app/packages/shared/src/iamPolicy.test.ts), so it must be updated to match whenever the shared source changes, or that test fails.

HyveonSelfRotate: a second, narrower managed policy

The guided-IAM CloudFormation template also attaches a second managed policy, HyveonSelfRotate, to the deploy user it creates. It grants exactly three actions — iam:CreateAccessKey, iam:DeleteAccessKey, iam:ListAccessKeys — scoped via a CloudFormation Fn::Sub to the created user's own ARN (arn:aws:iam::*:user/${UserName}), never to Resource: "*" or every user in the account.

This exists so the deploy principal can rotate its own access key — which both the guided flow's mint-then-revoke sequence and the app's own AwsProfileService.rotateActiveCredentials() need — without granting standing iam:* on all IAM users, which HyveonDeployAll's HyveonIAM statement deliberately does not do (it's scoped to hyveon-* roles and policies, not users). If you hand-roll your own IAM user via the manual fallback instead of guided setup, add these same three actions — scoped to that user's own ARN — or self-rotation from the app will fail with AccessDenied.

2. Clone, install, and launch the wizard

git clone https://github.com/CoderCoco/Hyveon.git
cd Hyveon
npm install
npm run desktop:run

desktop:run chains three steps: app:build compiles every TypeScript workspace (@hyveon/shared → @hyveon/infra → @hyveon/cloud-aws → @hyveon/desktop-main → @hyveon/desktop-preload → @hyveon/web), then desktop:build runs electron-vite build, then app:start launches the built app. On a clean checkout npm run desktop:build alone fails — Vite can't resolve @hyveon/shared and the other workspace packages until app:build has compiled them — so desktop:run exists to get from a fresh clone to a running app in one command without hitting that error first.

Once you've run app:build at least once, you don't need to repeat it on every iteration:

npm run desktop:build
npm run app:start

Use this manual two-step when you're iterating on Electron main/preload or renderer code without touching the shared/infra/cloud-aws TypeScript — it skips recompiling every workspace and just re-bundles and relaunches.

note

npm run desktop:dev (hot-reload dev mode) has a known outstanding bundling bug unrelated to this migration and shouldn't be used right now — use desktop:run (or the manual two-step above) instead; re-run after pulling new code.

The first launch replaces the entire window with the first-run setup wizard — there is no dashboard, no sidebar, and no way to skip it. Five steps, none of them a CLI command:

1. Choose your cloud — AWS is the only option today.
2. Provision AWS access — enter the region you want to deploy into, then either Continue with guided setup (the default) or I already have credentials to skip straight to step 3. Guided setup renders the iam-bootstrap.yaml CloudFormation template to disk, opens the AWS console's Create Stack page pre-scoped to your region, and has you upload the template and paste back the Access Key ID / Secret Access Key from the stack's Outputs. The app validates that key, then automatically mints a replacement, verifies it, and revokes the bootstrap key — see step 1 for why. If the newly minted key fails verification (AWS key propagation can lag a few seconds) the step offers Retry rotation against the same bootstrap key; if revoking the bootstrap key itself fails, the new key is already active and the step gives you a direct IAM console link to revoke it by hand. Progress is checkpointed at every sub-stage, so quitting mid-flow resumes here rather than losing your place.
3. AWS credentials — if you completed guided setup in step 2, this step shows a satisfied summary ("Hyveon already provisioned and activated AWS credentials during guided setup") instead of asking you to pick a profile or paste keys — a Switch to a different source button is there if you change your mind. Otherwise, pick an existing AWS CLI profile, or paste the access key you created under Manual fallback directly; either way pasted keys are encrypted with your OS keychain, never stored in plaintext.
4. Bootstrap AWS resources — creates the state bucket, the configuration bucket, and the run-history table directly via the AWS SDK (no CLI, and none of the three is Pulumi-managed): a state bucket (default hyveon-tfstate, versioned, AES-256 encrypted) that Pulumi's self-managed S3 backend reads and writes state to; a configuration bucket (default hyveon-config, versioned, 90-day noncurrent-version expiry, AES-256 encrypted) that holds the JSON configuration object your game servers are declared in; and a run-history table (default hyveon-runs) that records every plan/apply/destroy run. All three names can be selected during this bootstrap step; the run-history table name cannot change afterward without a migration, since it names an already-created physical table. This step also seeds the configuration object with an initial, empty document (gameServers: {}, every other field at its default) if one doesn't already exist — without this seed, nothing else in the app ever creates that first object, so Settings saves, Games-page adds, and Pulumi previews would otherwise fail immediately after the wizard finishes. Finally, this step has an advisory IAM permission check — it simulates the HyveonDeployAll policy's actions against your credentials and tells you exactly which are missing, but never blocks you from continuing.
5. Finish setup — resolves and installs the pinned Pulumi engine, installs the AWS provider plugin, and initializes the Pulumi stack against the bucket you just created. Runs automatically on arrival; no configuration needed beyond what you already entered.

Progress is saved on every step change, so you can close the app and pick up where you left off. Full detail, screenshot-by-screenshot, is in First-run wizard. Settings has a "Reconfigure" flow that re-runs this wizard later if you need to switch AWS profiles, regions, or bucket names.

Finishing the wizard only creates the backend — the buckets Pulumi stores state and configuration in. Your actual game-server infrastructure (the ECS cluster, EFS filesystem, Lambdas, DynamoDB tables, Route 53 wiring) does not exist yet; that's step 4.

3. Add your first game

Open the Games page and click Add game. A six-step wizard collects the container image, the Fargate CPU/memory pair, the ports it listens on, the EFS volumes it needs, and any environment variables to inject into the container:

Image:  thijsvanloef/palworld-server-docker:latest
CPU / Memory: 2048 / 8192
Ports: 8211/udp, 27015/udp
Environment: PLAYERS=8, SERVER_NAME=My Palworld Server
EFS volume: name "saves", container path /palworld

Submitting the wizard writes one entry into the versioned JSON configuration object (deployment-config.json, in the configuration bucket from step 2) and nothing else — no AWS resource exists yet. See Games for what every field does once the config is applied, and how to edit or remove a game afterwards.

Rules worth knowing before you save:

• Volumes — each entry creates a dedicated EFS access point rooted at /${game}/${name} and mounts it at the container path you give it. Most games need one entry. All access points use UID/GID 1000 ownership — game images that run as a different UID will fail to mount.
• file_seeds (optional; the Storage step's second list) pre-populates files on the EFS volume during apply. Each seed needs an in-container path and either UTF-8 content or base64 content_base64 (for binary files, e.g. mod .pak files). The seeder runs once per unique seed content and is a no-op on re-apply when nothing changes. Removed entries are not deleted from EFS. Do not put secrets in file_seeds — content is written into the JSON configuration object.
• https = true (optional; the Networking step's toggle) adds an in-task Caddy reverse-proxy sidecar that terminates TLS via Let's Encrypt automatic HTTPS, opening 443/tcp and 80/tcp publicly on the game's security group. Only set it on games that actually serve HTTP(S); UDP games (most game servers) must stay false. On a game's first-ever boot, expect the sidecar to take a couple of minutes after the server reaches RUNNING before HTTPS is live — it can't request a certificate until the update-dns Lambda's DNS record for the game propagates. Certificates persist on EFS, so this delay does not recur on subsequent restarts.
• CPU / memory must be a valid Fargate pair (see the Fargate task size table).
• There is no way to declare a per-game DNS record from the app — the update-dns Lambda owns that entirely.

4. Plan and apply the infrastructure

Go to Infrastructure, click Run plan, read the change summary (N to create / N to update / N to delete), click Approve plan, then Apply. Full mechanics — the approval expiry, the plan-hash check, run history, rollback — are in Infrastructure.

The first apply takes a few minutes end-to-end. It creates the VPC, two public subnets, an ECS cluster, one task definition + EFS access point + CloudWatch log group per game (HTTPS games get a second, Caddy sidecar container plus a dedicated cert-storage EFS access point in the same task definition — no separate load balancer or ACM certificate resource), the four always-on Lambdas (interactions, followup, update-dns, watchdog) plus a conditional per-game efs-seeder Lambda for any game with file_seeds, three DynamoDB tables (Discord config/state, the audit log, and the plan/apply run history), two Secrets Manager secrets, and the EventBridge rule + schedule. The deploy IAM policy's existing dynamodb:* statement (see step 1) already covers all three tables — no policy change is needed.

When it finishes, the interactions Lambda's Function URL is available from the Discord page's Credentials tab — you'll need it in step 6.

5. Run the management app

Hyveon is a packaged Electron desktop app — there's no HTTP server or bearer token to configure. Pick one of the two ways to run it:

Option A — build and launch

# One-shot from a clean checkout: compiles every workspace, bundles
# Electron, and launches the built app
npm run desktop:run

Same one-shot command used in step 2 above — chains app:build (compiles @hyveon/shared and every other TypeScript workspace), desktop:build (electron-vite build), and app:start (launches the built app).

If you've already run app:build and just changed Electron main/preload or renderer code, skip straight to the cheaper manual two-step instead of recompiling every workspace:

npm run desktop:build
npm run app:start

npm run desktop:dev normally adds hot-reload on renderer saves, but has a known outstanding bundling bug right now — use desktop:run (or the manual two-step above) instead until that's fixed.

Option B — packaged Electron app (distributable installer)

Prefer to just download and run the app instead of building it? See Install for per-OS steps to get past the unsigned-build warning — the plan to remove that warning entirely lives in the code-signing roadmap.

npm run desktop:package produces a platform-native installer via electron-builder (config: electron-builder.yml). Run it from the repo root:

# Build the Electron bundle and package into an installer
npm run desktop:package

This runs desktop:build (electron-vite) first, then electron-builder, which produces one output per platform in release/:

Platform	Output
Windows	release/Hyveon Setup *.exe (NSIS installer)
macOS	release/Hyveon-*.dmg (DMG image)
Linux	release/Hyveon-*.AppImage (AppImage)

By default electron-builder targets only the host platform. To cross-compile, pass --win, --mac, or --linux explicitly: npx electron-builder --config electron-builder.yml --linux.

What gets bundled: the Electron sources under out/ are packed into an asar archive. Lambda bundles are deployed to AWS by the Pulumi program and are not packaged into the installer.

App icon

The icon is authored as vector art in build/ and rasterised into the formats each packager expects. All of the generated files are committed, so packaging works from a clean checkout without extra steps.

Every asset is transparent — there is no background tile — so the mark sits directly on the taskbar, dock or installer chrome the way a native app icon does. That constrains the artwork: the cells are solid shapes rather than thin outlines, because outlines only hold up against a known dark background and go lacy on a light one.

File	Source	Used by
build/icon.svg	hand-authored master	everything at 32px and above
build/icon-small.svg	hand-authored 16–24px variant	the two smallest .ico entries, browser tab
build/icon.png	generated, 1024×1024	Linux AppImage, and the runtime window icon via extraResources
build/icon.ico	generated, 16–256px	NSIS installer, Windows Explorer, taskbar
build/icon.icns	generated	macOS DMG and dock
app/packages/web/public/favicon.svg + favicon-32.png + apple-touch-icon.png	generated	browser tab in desktop:dev and Vite preview

To change the artwork, edit build/icon.svg (and build/icon-small.svg, which carries a simplified version of the same mark for the 16px and 24px slots, where the seven-cell honeycomb blurs together), then regenerate:

npm run icons:generate

The generator lives at build/generate-icons.mjs and uses sharp to rasterise plus png2icons to assemble the macOS .icns; both are root devDependencies. Commit the regenerated binaries alongside the SVG change.

6. (Optional) Wire up the Discord bot

The serverless bot is two Lambdas, one DynamoDB table (Discord config/state), and two Secrets Manager secrets (bot token, public key) — all created by the apply in step 4. You now connect it to a Discord application.

A game with a basic/bearer health-check credential adds one more Secrets Manager secret per game, created outside this apply by the desktop app itself the first time you save that credential — see Games. It isn't part of the count above and isn't provisioned or destroyed by the infra program.

Two more DynamoDB tables are created unconditionally in the same apply — neither is part of the Discord bot and neither requires any of the setup below. The audit log table records structured audit log entries (who did what and when) for game-server configuration changes (add/edit/remove) made via the management app's UI; it does not record Discord bot actions, server start/stop, or credential edits. The run history table records one row per plan/apply run — status, initiator, approver, approval time, plan hash, configuration version, and a plan-diff summary — for the Infrastructure page's run history. Both tables are covered by the existing dynamodb:* action in the deploy IAM policy — no policy change is needed.

1. Create a Discord application at discord.com/developers/applications → New Application → add a Bot. Copy three values from General Information:

   Value	Where it goes	Used for
   Application ID (Client ID)	DynamoDB Discord config row	Needed when the server registers slash commands for a guild. Public, not a secret.
   Bot Token	Secrets Manager ${project_name}/discord/bot-token	Authorization: Bot <token> for the REST call that registers commands. Treat like a password.
   Application Public Key	Secrets Manager ${project_name}/discord/public-key	The interactions Lambda verifies every incoming interaction against this Ed25519 key.

   You do not need any Privileged Gateway Intents — HTTP interactions deliver the invoker's role IDs directly in the request body.

2. Seed the credentials. Open the Discord page's Credentials tab, paste the Application ID, Bot Token, and Application Public Key, and Save. The dashboard writes directly to DynamoDB and Secrets Manager — no infrastructure apply is needed for this step.

3. Copy the interactions endpoint URL (shown in the dashboard Credentials tab) into the Discord Developer Portal under General Information → Interactions Endpoint URL → Save. Discord sends a PING on save; the Lambda replies PONG and Discord accepts the URL.

4. Invite the bot to your server. In the Developer Portal:

   • Installation → Installation Contexts: enable Guild Install, disable User Install.
   • OAuth2 → URL Generator: tick scopes bot and applications.commands; under Bot Permissions, tick Send Messages and Use Slash Commands (Discord's UI name for the USE_APPLICATION_COMMANDS permission).
   • Open the generated URL and add the bot to your server.

5. Enable Developer Mode in Discord (User Settings → Advanced → Developer Mode) so you can right-click servers/users/roles and Copy ID.

6. In the dashboard's Discord Bot panel:

   • Guilds tab: click Register commands next to a guild to install /server-start, /server-stop, /server-status, /server-list. This is always a per-guild REST call; there are no global commands.
   • Admins tab: user IDs and/or role IDs that can run everything on everything.
   • Per-Game Permissions tab: for each game, which users/roles can invoke which subset of start / stop / status.

The user guide has the day-to-day command reference; the interactions/followup Lambda docs have the wire-level detail.

7. Smoke test

With infra applied, the app running, and (optionally) a Discord guild configured:

1. Open the dashboard → the game you configured should appear as stopped.
2. Click Start. Watch the card transition through PROVISIONING → PENDING → RUNNING. DNS is updated by the update-dns Lambda as soon as the task reaches RUNNING.
3. dig {game}.yourdomain.com should return the task's public IP within a few seconds. Connect your game client.
4. Click Stop, or type /server-stop {game} in Discord, or do nothing for the configured watchdog window — any of the three stops the task and removes the DNS record.

8. Tear it down

Stop every server from the dashboard first (so the update-dns Lambda gets a clean STOPPED event and removes records), then go to Infrastructure and use the Destroy infrastructure panel at the bottom of the page — type destroy infrastructure to confirm. See Destroy for the full confirmation flow.

The two Discord-bot Secrets Manager secrets (bot token, public key) use a zero-day recovery window, so they are deleted immediately — you can apply again tomorrow without hitting "already scheduled for deletion". Any app-owned health-check credential secrets (hyveon-{game}-healthcheck-auth — see Games) are not part of this: they're created and deleted by the desktop app's write path, not by the Pulumi program, so Destroy leaves them untouched. They use Secrets Manager's default (non-zero) recovery window and are deleted only when their credential is cleared, its type changes away from basic/bearer, or the owning game is removed.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Plan fails with "no such hosted zone" / a Route 53 lookup error	hosted_zone_name doesn't exist in Route 53	Create the hosted zone first (or delegate your registrar's NS records).
Apply fails partway through with a Lambda-bundle error	Lambda bundles weren't built	npm run app:build:lambdas, then re-apply from the Infrastructure page.
EFS seeder Lambda times out or returns EFS mount failed	Mount targets not ready or security group misconfigured	Ensure the apply completed fully (mount targets take ~30 s); check the seeder Lambda's CloudWatch log group /aws/lambda/${project_name}-efs-seeder-{game}.
file_seeds path error: "does not start with container_path"	Seed path doesn't share the first volume's container path prefix	Check that the seed's path begins with the first volume's container path (e.g. /palworld/…).
Discord panel says infrastructure not yet applied	The interactions Lambda's Function URL output is missing	Re-run the apply from the Infrastructure page.
Dashboard says awaiting credentials	Secrets still contain the infra program's "placeholder" seed	Paste the real bot token + public key in the Credentials tab and Save.
Discord rejects the interactions URL with "invalid interactions endpoint URL"	Public key in Secrets Manager doesn't match Discord's	Re-copy the Application Public Key from the Developer Portal and Save.
/server-* slash commands don't appear in Discord	Per-guild registration not done	Guilds tab → Register commands next to the guild ID.
/server-start says "You don't have permission"	Your user/role isn't in admins or per-game permissions, or the start action isn't ticked	Admins tab or Per-Game Permissions tab, then retry.
Task reaches RUNNING but DNS never updates	update-dns Lambda errored; EventBridge rule might be disabled	Check the Lambda's CloudWatch logs; verify the EventBridge rule is enabled.
Watchdog stops tasks too aggressively	Low idle-packet threshold, short check interval, or few idle checks configured	Tune the three knobs via the dashboard Server Config panel and re-apply.