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Getting started with Harness Platform

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Use this guide to set up Harness Platform so your teams can start using any Harness module.

What will you learn in this topic?​

Before you begin​

Set up the Harness Platform​

Follow the steps below to understand the platform and complete the initial setup so you can start using other Harness modules.

Step 1: Access your Harness account​

Sign up for a free account or sign in to your existing Harness account to get started.

If you have signed up for a free account, go to Account license limits to know the limitations on actions that you can perform.

After you log in to your account, select a module and you are redirected to the platform user interface.

Step 2: Create organization, project, and invite collaborators​

Once you have created an account, you can begin creating organizations and projects. If you are part of a team account, contact your administrator to get the necessary permissions to create organizations and projects.

important
  • With a free account, a default organization and project are already created for you.
  • You cannot create another new organization. However, you can create multiple projects within the default organization, and invite collaborators into the default organization.

Create an organization​

  1. In Harness, select Account Settings to switch to account scope.

The Organizations tab appears on top of Account Settings. Click Organizations.

(OR)

  1. Click the Account, select Organizations, click View All Orgs, and click Organizations.

  1. Click +New Organization.

    The new organization settings appear.

  1. In Name, enter a name for your organization. Enter Description, and tags for your new org. Click Save and Continue.

    The organization is created and you can now invite collaborators.

Invite collaborators​

You do not have to add the same members to an org and its projects. You can add org-level members, and then add project-level members later when you set up or edit a project.

The org and any projects added to the org are used by their members only.

  1. Click Organizations, and then select the three-dot menu (⋮) of the org you want to invite people to.
  1. Select Invite People to Collaborate, type a member's name and select it.
  2. In Role, select the role the member will have in this org, such as Organization Admin or Organization Member.

  1. Click Add.

    Members receive invites via their email addresses.

    You can invite more members from within the org later.

  2. Click Finish.

    The org is added to the list under Organizations.

Create a project​

You can create projects from the Projects section or from within the organization. You will set up user permissions in the next step.

The following steps show you how to create a project from the Projects section.

  1. In Harness, go to Home and click Projects.
  2. Click +Project.
  3. Name the project, and select a color. Harness automatically generates the project ID. See Harness Entity Reference.
  4. In Organization, select the org you created.
  5. Add a description and tags, and then click Save and Continue to create the project.

To invite collaborators, follow the steps from Invite Collaborators.

The project you created will be listed under Projects.

You can create additional organizations and projects to represent your business units and product development initiatives.

tip
  • Harness recommends creating a sample project with a few pilot users to get familiar with the Platform.
  • Once your initial setup is ready, choose a module from the left navigation bar.

Step 3: Manage users​

To control user access at a granular level, configure authentication and role-based access control (RBAC) for your Harness account.

You can also automate user provisioning from external sources, including user group memberships and role assignments. The following methods are supported:

To add users manually, go to add users manually.

Step 4: Manage shared resources​

Shared resources are the connections between Harness and your infrastructure. Most modules require at least one delegate and a connector to function.

  • Delegate: A lightweight worker you install in your environment (Kubernetes, Docker, virtual machine (VM)). It executes tasks on behalf of Harness using outbound-only HTTPS. You do not need one immediately, but you will need one when running pipelines. For more information, go to Delegates.

  • Connector: Stores credentials and connection information for third-party tools like GitHub, AWS, GCP, and DockerHub. For more information, go to connectors.

  • Secret: An encrypted storage for sensitive values like API keys and passwords. Harness has a built-in secret manager and integrates with Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, and others. For more information, go to secrets.

As an administrator, you can configure shared resources at the account, organization, or project scope, depending on how you want to facilitate their availability.

tip
  • For teams managing Harness at scale, you can automate the configuration of shared resources using the Harness Terraform Provider or REST API.
  • Shared resources created at the account scope are available to all organizations and projects in your account.

Explore Harness modules​

Once the platform is set up, you can start using Harness modules to automate your software delivery lifecycle. Each module is built for a specific part of the software delivery lifecycle (SDLC) and can be used independently or together.

If you want toStart with
Build and test code automaticallyContinuous Integration (CI)
Deploy services to any environmentContinuous Delivery & GitOps (CD)
Manage cloud infrastructure costsCloud Cost Management (CCM)
Safely roll out features with flagsFeature Flags (FF)
Find and fix security vulnerabilitiesSecurity Testing Orchestration (STO)
Run chaos experiments on your systemsChaos Engineering (CE)
Track engineering metrics and DORASoftware Engineering Insights (SEI)

Become a Harness Certified Expert​

Harness self-paced training

For an interactive onboarding experience with additional use cases and features, check out Harness University.

Next steps​