Fly.io Has a Free API That Most Developers Don't Know About

#flyio #devops #cloud #api

Fly.io runs your apps on servers close to users worldwide. Beyond the CLI, Fly has a powerful Machines API that lets you programmatically create, start, stop, and manage VMs.

Machines API — Create a VM

curl -X POST "https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer FLY_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "config": {
      "image": "registry.fly.io/my-app:latest",
      "guest": { "cpu_kind": "shared", "cpus": 1, "memory_mb": 256 },
      "services": [{
        "ports": [{ "port": 443, "handlers": ["tls", "http"] }],
        "protocol": "tcp",
        "internal_port": 8080
      }]
    }
  }'

List All Machines

curl "https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer FLY_API_TOKEN" | jq ".[].id"

Start/Stop Machines

# Stop
curl -X POST "https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines/MACHINE_ID/stop" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer FLY_API_TOKEN"

# Start
curl -X POST "https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines/MACHINE_ID/start" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer FLY_API_TOKEN"

Use Cases

On-demand workers — spin up machines for heavy tasks, destroy when done
Preview environments — create per-PR deploys programmatically
Auto-scaling — custom scaling logic beyond built-in autoscaler
Multi-region — deploy to specific regions based on user location

CLI Quick Deploy

fly launch      # Initialize app
fly deploy      # Deploy from Dockerfile
fly scale count 3 --region iad,cdg,nrt  # Scale to 3 regions
fly status      # Check running machines
fly logs        # Stream logs

Key Features

Machines API for programmatic VM management
Global edge network in 30+ regions
GPU machines for ML workloads
Postgres and Redis managed services
Scale to zero — pay only when running

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