Quickstart Guide

This page shows the shortest workflow that exposes a local HTTP service through rstream. The goal is clarity rather than completeness: install the CLI, authenticate, select a project, and open a tunnel.

The example assumes that the CLI is already installed. Installation paths are documented in Installation. For the tunnel target, a small HTTP server listens on port 8080. Any service that listens on a TCP port can be used instead.

Start a local service

Run a simple HTTP server on port 8080:

python -m http.server 8080

Keep the process running while the tunnel is open.

Authenticate

Authenticate the CLI:

rstream login

The command starts a browser-based flow and stores an authentication token in the local rstream configuration.

Select a project

Create a project in the Dashboard and copy its project endpoint. Then select it in the CLI:

rstream project use <project-endpoint> --default

This creates or updates a local context for the selected project and makes it the default context for subsequent CLI commands.

Open a tunnel

Create a published tunnel that forwards to the local port:

rstream forward 8080

The CLI shows the forwarding endpoint once the tunnel is online. For script-friendly output, use text or JSON explicitly:

rstream forward 8080 -o text

In text mode, the forwarding field is the public endpoint and forwarded is the local target.

Next steps

Continue with Create a Tunnel for tunnel options, Stable Domains for predictable public URLs, HTTP Tunnels for protocol behavior, and Authentication for request-level access control at the edge.