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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Fly.io Has a Free Machines API for Edge Deployments

#flyio #api #edge #deployment

Fly.io's Machines API lets you create, start, stop, and destroy VMs programmatically at the edge. Deploy containers to 30+ regions with a single API call.

Authentication 

export FLY_API_TOKEN=$(flyctl auth token)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $FLY_API_TOKEN" \
  https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps
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Key Operations

List Apps 

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $FLY_TOKEN" \
  https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps?org_slug=personal
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Create a Machine 

curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $FLY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines \
  -d '{
    "config": {
      "image": "nginx:latest",
      "guest": {"cpu_kind": "shared", "cpus": 1, "memory_mb": 256},
      "services": [{"ports": [{"port": 443, "handlers": ["tls","http"]}], "protocol": "tcp", "internal_port": 80}]
    },
    "region": "ams"
  }'
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Stop/Start/Destroy 

# Stop
curl -X POST https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines/machine-id/stop

# Start
curl -X POST https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines/machine-id/start

# Destroy
curl -X DELETE https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/my-app/machines/machine-id
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Scale to Multiple Regions 

import requests

FLY_URL = "https://api.machines.dev/v1"
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {TOKEN}", "Content-Type": "application/json"}

regions = ["ams", "lax", "nrt", "syd"]
for region in regions:
    r = requests.post(f"{FLY_URL}/apps/my-app/machines",
        headers=headers,
        json={"config": {"image": "my-app:latest", "guest": {"cpus": 1, "memory_mb": 256}}, "region": region}
    )
    print(f"{region}: {r.json().get('id', 'error')}")
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Why This Matters

  • Edge computing: Deploy to 30+ regions in seconds
  • Scale to zero: Machines stop when idle, saving costs
  • Custom orchestration: Build your own PaaS on top of Fly
  • GPU workloads: Spin up GPU machines on demand

Need custom edge deployment tools or distributed infrastructure? I build developer tools and data pipelines. Check out my web scraping actors on Apify or reach out at spinov001@gmail.com for custom solutions.

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