Build-knowledge — FAQ: the questions people actually ask

Short answers, with a link to the long one. Where the honest answer is "you can't yet", it says that instead of describing a feature that does not exist.

Getting started

What is Imperium? The part of Leumas that puts websites on the internet. A site is one record; a worker matches the incoming hostname to it and serves it. There is no per-site configuration at the edge, which is why a new site is live within seconds of publishing rather than after a deploy.

Do I need Leumas Studio to host a site? No. Studio is where you build and manage sites, and it runs on the platform at studio.leumas.tech in your browser. The desktop app is for running your own Leumas instance — your own database, your own machine. Both can host.

How do I make an account? On leumas.tech, Continue with Google. On your own copy of Studio, the first-run wizard. See accounts — which door is open depends on which Leumas you are looking at, and that catches people out.

Why won't leumas.tech let me sign up with a password? Password signup is closed on the public platform on purpose; members use Google. Existing password accounts still sign in normally — only signup is closed. On your own install the password form is the live door.

Hosting on Leumas

Is hosting free? Building is free. Publishing is the line. Every account can create a website and preview it. The free floor allows one site and zero published ones, so putting a site in front of the public is what a plan buys. Starter is $6/month for 3 sites with 1 published; the larger plans raise both.

How many websites can I have? Two different numbers, and mixing them up is the usual confusion: how many you may own, and how many may be live at once. Free is 1 and 0. Starter is 3 and 1. You can ask your own install what your limits are — Studio shows them, and the hosting API reports limit, used and remaining so a refusal can be predicted instead of hit.

[warning] "Unlimited" is a plan name, not a promise. Its caps are real numbers — 250 sites, 100 published, 200 GB. The source says as much: whoever first hits 100 published sites will be right to complain.

What happens to my site if I stop paying? It stops serving and shows a suspension page. The entitlement is re-checked on every request and fails closed, so this happens on the next page load rather than at some renewal boundary. Your site and its content are not deleted.

Can I change my subdomain later? No. A subdomain is permanent — create a new site to change it. Studio says so on the domains tab before you commit.

Why does it say my subdomain is unavailable? One message covers five reasons: it is on the reserved list, it is already taken by another site, it collides with a platform config, it is structurally invalid, or it becomes empty once normalised. The refusal deliberately does not say which — it will not confirm whether a specific name is taken.

Reserved names include www, api, app, admin, studio, assets, cdn, mail, login, auth, db, mcp, library, index, social, downloads, hidden and ops. Some are reserved for a subtle reason: downloads is routed away before the worker ever sees it, so a site claiming it would be publishable, listed, and permanently unreachable.

Can I use my own domain? Yes, and there are two ways. For one hostname, add it to the site and publish a single TXT record at _leumas-verify.<your-host>. For a whole domain, prove it once as a zone and then bind as many names under it as you like without touching DNS again. Up to 25 domains per site, 10 zones per account, 200 sites per domain.

I proved my domain but nothing loads. Proving ownership and sending traffic are two separate steps, and the checklist in Studio is explicit about it: a proved domain with no traffic pointed at it still serves nothing. Point the hostname here with a CNAME or A record — and the wildcard too, which is the line most people miss.

A name under my verified domain returns 404. Bindings are exact. An unbound hostname under a proved domain does not fall back to the apex, because a fallback is how a typo becomes someone else's traffic. Bind the name.

Bringing something you already have

Can I upload a site I already built? Yes — upload the built folder to the site's Files tab, then point the site at it. That is deliberately two actions rather than one: uploading is not publishing.

Can I put Leumas in front of an app I am already running? Yes, that is a proxy site. Some of the more powerful shapes — serving a folder from the server's own disk, or running a program — are operator-only and will refuse for an ordinary member, because they reach the host beyond that site's own data.

Can I take my site somewhere else later? The content is yours and the site is one record. There is no export button today; that is a gap.

Running Leumas yourself

What does Leumas Studio run on? Windows x64 only. There is no Mac or Linux build — the installer configures no target for them. Studio itself is free. If you are on Mac or Linux, LeumasNode is the thing to look at.

Where does my data live if I run Studio? On your machine, in your user profile — a local database, migrated on first launch. The Studio API binds to loopback, so nothing on your network reaches it unless you deliberately put something in front of it.

Does Studio stop working if Leumas goes down? No. The licence is verified offline on your machine against a signed token, with a grace period. An unreachable platform does not brick an install.

Can I host sites on my own domain, from my own install? Yes, but not from the Studio desktop process itself — that is loopback-only and is the authoring side. Serving is a separate worker you run, pointed at the same store, with a wildcard DNS record and something terminating TLS in front of it. A scaffold command writes the configuration, and a ready-made reverse-proxy config ships with it.

Do I need to configure a route per site on my own server? No, and this is the point of the design: the edge needs no per-site routes, ever. Each worker resolves the incoming hostname to a site itself. Add a wildcard once and never touch the edge again.

Accounts and teams

How do I add someone to my instance? On your own install, they sign up with email and password. On the platform, they sign in with Google.

How do I make someone else an administrator? You cannot, today. Roles are assigned at signup and at first-run, and no endpoint grants one. The admin API can manage users, membership and tokens, but not roles. This is a real gap rather than a setting that is hard to find.

I am an administrator — why do I not see the paywall? Administrators bypass hosting limits on their own instance by design.

Related

• accounts — the four ways an account is created, and which door your install opens.
• imperium hosting — the full hosting reference.