> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.slai.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Beam is a cloud platform where you can provision infrastructure, develop on remote runtimes from your local machine, and deploy apps as serverless functions — without leaving your IDE

### Getting started

1. [Create an account](https://www.slai.io/login)
2. [Download the CLI](beam/getting-started/install-beam)
3. Start developing and deploying apps - that's it!

<Warning>
  Beam is currently in private beta. If you're reading this, you're one of the
  first people to try it.
</Warning>

### 📦 Setup remote development environments in code

Configure your runtime in Python - tell us how many GPUs you need and which libraries you want installed, and Beam will spawn a remote environment for you.

<video controls>
  <source src="https://mintcdn.com/slai-docs/x8Ejwqb1sXwT0acS/img/videos/define-runtime.mp4?fit=max&auto=format&n=x8Ejwqb1sXwT0acS&q=85&s=a52c3296fae81a2d15758bd35799112d" type="video/mp4" data-path="img/videos/define-runtime.mp4" />
</video>

### 🛰 Develop locally on remote hardware

You can write and run your code locally - except when you enter your shell, your code will run on Beam instead of your local machine.

<video controls>
  <source src="https://mintcdn.com/slai-docs/x8Ejwqb1sXwT0acS/img/videos/develop-locally.mp4?fit=max&auto=format&n=x8Ejwqb1sXwT0acS&q=85&s=c709703e4d5b9486b97d6e23fe05f2b5" type="video/mp4" data-path="img/videos/develop-locally.mp4" />
</video>

### 🚀 Deploy apps as serverless functions

Deploy your apps as serverless REST APIs, scheduled cron jobs, or webhooks - all in just four lines of Python.

<video controls>
  <source src="https://mintcdn.com/slai-docs/x8Ejwqb1sXwT0acS/img/videos/deploy.mp4?fit=max&auto=format&n=x8Ejwqb1sXwT0acS&q=85&s=f03f1b3da91812cc0de2bf4527c857fd" type="video/mp4" data-path="img/videos/deploy.mp4" />
</video>

### What can you do with Beam?

* Deploy ML models on serverless runtimes. Your app will scale automatically with traffic and spin down when idle.

* Develop on your local IDE, while running on remote GPUs

* Instantly jump from hacking on a script to serving an API in production

* Save money on your cloud bill. Beam is serverless and charges simple usage-based, per-second pricing

## Tutorial: Deploying Stable Diffusion on GPU

<Frame>
  <iframe height="450" width="600" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PuYO5oNFFGA" />
</Frame>

## Get started with an example

<Card title="Stable Diffusion on GPU" icon="layer-group" href="beam/getting-started/stable-diffusion-gpu">
  Deploy Stable Diffusion using a GPU
</Card>

<Card title="Web Scraping" icon="ghost" href="beam/getting-started/running-a-web-scraper">
  Scraping a website and running the results through an ML model
</Card>

<Card title="Huggingface REST API" icon="bolt" href="beam/getting-started/deploying-an-ml-model">
  Deploying a pre-trained ML model as a REST API
</Card>

### Core Concepts

<Frame>
  * **Apps**. Each project in Beam is called an app. When you first start Beam, you'll be prompted to define your environment through the `Beam.App()` method in the SDK.

  * **Triggers**. Triggers are actions that can invoke your Beam apps. For example, a REST API trigger allows your Beam app to be invoked via a REST API. A webhook trigger will allow your Beam app to be invoked asyncronously using a webhook, and so on.

  * **Outputs**. Outputs are file paths that can be used to save files created when your functions are run.
</Frame>