# Accounts, organizations, and projects (/guides/account-model)



This page explains how the pieces of an account fit together. For the steps,
see [Manage projects](/guides/projects) and [Manage billing and credits](/guides/billing).

## The hierarchy [#the-hierarchy]

```
You (sign in with email or wallet)
└── Organization        billing, credits, members, roles
    └── Project         a workspace for related services
        └── Service     one deployed thing: a container, a template, a GPU job
            └── Deployment   one release of that service
```

Everything you pay for or share belongs to an **organization**, never to you
directly. Projects sort the work inside it.

## Organizations [#organizations]

An organization owns the subscription, the credit wallet, and the list of
people who can use it.

* **Your personal organization** is created when you sign up. It cannot be
  renamed or deleted.
* **Team organizations** are ones you create to work with other people. You
  can belong to several and switch between them in the web app.
* Inviting people requires an active paid subscription on that organization.

### Roles [#roles]

| Role       | Can do                                                                       |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Owner**  | Everything: billing, members, settings, deploy, and delete the organization. |
| **Admin**  | Deploy, and add or remove members. No billing access.                        |
| **Member** | Deploy and view.                                                             |

Owners and admins see every project. A member can be given access to all
projects or only to the ones you pick when you invite them. The **Members**,
**Billing**, and **Settings** pages in the web app are visible to owners and
admins only.

## Projects [#projects]

A project is a folder for services that belong together: one application, one
customer, or one environment such as staging and production.

* Every service lives in exactly one project.
* The CLI always acts on one **active project**. `acc whoami` shows which, and
  `acc projects switch` changes it. In scripts, set `AF_PROJECT_ID` instead.
* Deleting a project deletes all of its services.

## Services [#services]

A service is the thing you deploy. It is created from a template, a Docker
image, or as an empty server, and it carries its settings:

* **Where and how it runs:** region (`us-east`, `us-west`, `eu`, `asia`, or
  Any), CPU, memory, storage, an optional GPU, and whether it runs
  confidentially inside a trusted execution environment (TEE).
* **Configuration:** environment variables, and links to other services in the
  same project so they can find each other.
* **Spend controls:** pay as you go, a budget cap, or an auto-stop timer.
* **Its URL:** `https://<slug>-app.alternatefutures.ai`, assigned when the
  first deployment comes up.

## Deployments [#deployments]

A deployment is one release of a service. Deploying again creates a new
deployment rather than changing the old one, so each service has a history.

A deployment moves through stages: it is created, waits for a provider to
offer capacity, is handed to that provider, starts its containers, and becomes
**active**. If it stops, it is **closed** (you closed it), **suspended** (your
organization ran out of credits, and it resumes on topup), or **failed**. The
[troubleshooting](/troubleshooting) page covers what to do in each case.

## Where to find each piece [#where-to-find-each-piece]

| Piece                | Web app                                                       | CLI                                        |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Organization         | Organization switcher, **Settings**, **Members**, **Billing** | `acc billing balance`, `--org` on topups   |
| Project              | **Projects**                                                  | `acc projects list`, `acc projects switch` |
| Service              | Project page, **Deploy**                                      | `acc services list`, `acc services info`   |
| Deployment           | **Deployments**                                               | `acc deployments`, `acc services logs`     |
| Your sign-in methods | **Account settings**                                          | `acc login`, `acc whoami`                  |

## Next steps [#next-steps]

* [Manage projects](/guides/projects)
* [How billing works](/guides/how-billing-works)
* [Web app overview](/guides/dashboard)
* [Quick start](/guides/quickstart)