As Coder evolves to meet the demands of modern development workflows, ensuring

scalability is paramount. Today, we're stress-testing our platform with 2000

concurrent users, preparing for deployments of up to 5000 users. This

documentation provides prescriptive solutions and reference architectures to

support successful customer deployments.

Let's dive into the core concepts and terminology essential for understanding

Coder's architecture and deployment strategies.

An administrator is a user role within the Coder platform with elevated

privileges. Admins have access to administrative functions such as user

management, template definitions, insights, and deployment configuration.

A user is an individual who utilizes the Coder platform to develop, test, and

deploy applications using workspaces. Users can select available templates to

provision workspaces. They interact with Coder using the web interface, the CLI

tool, or directly calling API methods.

A workspace refers to an isolated development environment where users can write,

build, and run code. Workspaces are fully configurable and can be tailored to

specific project requirements, providing developers with a consistent and

efficient development environment. Workspaces can be autostarted and

autostopped, enabling efficient resource management.

Users can connect to workspaces using SSH or via workspace applications like

`code-server`, facilitating collaboration and remote access. Additionally,

workspaces can be parameterized, allowing users to customize settings and

configurations based on their unique needs. Workspaces are instantiated using

Coder templates and deployed on nodes by provisioners.

A template in Coder is a predefined configuration for creating workspaces.

Templates streamline the process of workspace creation by providing

pre-configured settings, tooling, and dependencies. They are built by template

administrators on top of Terraform, allowing for efficient management of

infrastructure resources. Additionally, templates can utilize Coder modules to

leverage existing features shared with other templates, enhancing flexibility

and consistency across deployments. Templates describe provisioning rules for

infrastructure resources offered by cloud providers.

A proxy in Coder serves as an intermediary between users and the Coder platform,

facilitating secure communication and access control. The proxy handles requests

from users, routes them to the appropriate services within Coder, and enforces

security policies to safeguard sensitive information.

A provisioner in Coder is responsible for provisioning and managing resources

required for workspace creation. This includes allocating computing resources

such as CPU, memory, and storage, as well as configuring networking settings to

ensure seamless connectivity within the workspace environment.

A registry in Coder is a centralized repository for storing and managing

container images used within the platform. By leveraging a registry, users can

easily share, distribute, and deploy containerized applications across their

development workflows, ensuring consistency and reliability.

A Kubernetes cluster for Coder is a dedicated cluster specifically configured to

host and manage Coder workloads. Kubernetes provides container orchestration

capabilities, allowing Coder to efficiently deploy, scale, and manage workspaces

across a distributed infrastructure. This ensures high availability, fault

tolerance, and scalability for Coder deployments.