Object storage

A bucket is private S3-compatible storage in your project, for anything that has to outlive a container’s filesystem: uploads, generated exports, static assets, backups. Siblings reach it at its service name. It has no public URL unless you turn one on. Object storage requires the Hobby plan or higher. See Plans.

Creating a bucket

Select New → Object storage. A bucket has no compute allocation to choose, because the S3 endpoint runs on slipway’s side rather than yours.

Connecting

The bucket speaks the S3 API, so any S3 client works unchanged. Two settings differ from talking to AWS: use path-style addressing, because the in-cluster endpoint is a bare service name and cannot carry a bucket in its hostname, and set the region to auto. Every value you need is a service reference, so nothing is copied by hand:

slipway.yaml

services:
  - name: api
    runtime: docker
    env:
      S3_ENDPOINT: ${service.files.endpoint}
      S3_BUCKET: ${service.files.bucket}
      S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${service.files.access_key_id}
      S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${service.files.secret_access_key}
      S3_REGION: auto

These resolve to the bucket’s default key, which is created with the bucket and has read-write access.

import boto3, os

s3 = boto3.client(
    "s3",
    endpoint_url=os.environ["S3_ENDPOINT"],
    aws_access_key_id=os.environ["S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID"],
    aws_secret_access_key=os.environ["S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"],
    region_name="auto",
)
s3.put_object(Bucket=os.environ["S3_BUCKET"], Key="hello.txt", Body=b"hi")

import { S3Client, PutObjectCommand } from "@aws-sdk/client-s3";

const s3 = new S3Client({
  endpoint: process.env.S3_ENDPOINT,
  region: "auto",
  forcePathStyle: true,
  credentials: {
    accessKeyId: process.env.S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
    secretAccessKey: process.env.S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY,
  },
});

await s3.send(new PutObjectCommand({
  Bucket: process.env.S3_BUCKET,
  Key: "hello.txt",
  Body: "hi",
}));

client := s3.New(s3.Options{
    Region:       "auto",
    BaseEndpoint: aws.String(os.Getenv("S3_ENDPOINT")),
    UsePathStyle: true,
    Credentials: credentials.NewStaticCredentialsProvider(
        os.Getenv("S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID"),
        os.Getenv("S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"), ""),
})

Access keys

The Keys tab lists the bucket’s access keys. Each is read-write (full access) or read-only (GET, HEAD and listing, with uploads and deletes refused as AccessDenied). Create a key per consumer rather than sharing one, so revoking a single integration does not take down the rest. Revoking a key takes effect within about two minutes and needs no redeploy. Keys are checked against a live key set rather than baked into the running container.

Deleting the default key breaks ${service.X.access_key_id} and ${service.X.secret_access_key} for every sibling that references them. Those deploys fail with no_credentials until a default key exists again or the references point at another key.

External access

By default a bucket is reachable only from inside its project. External access, on the Connection card, serves the S3 API on the public internet over HTTPS at https://<service>.<your-domain>, so tools, CI and apps elsewhere can use it. Requests still need an access key. External access changes where the bucket can be reached from, not who may read it. Turning it on redeploys the service, because the public hostname is part of the service’s configuration rather than a setting applied to a running container. Turning it off withdraws the hostname on the next deploy.

A presigned URL is only valid against the endpoint it was signed for. One signed against the in-cluster endpoint (http://files:9000) will not work from a browser. Sign against the public hostname instead.

Public access

Public access controls what a caller with no access key may do. It applies within about two minutes and needs no redeploy.

Mode	An anonymous caller can
Private (default)	Nothing. Every request needs a key.
Public objects	Fetch an object by its exact key. The bucket cannot be listed.
Public browse	Also list the bucket and browse it as a file index.

Use Public objects for avatars, downloads and static assets: the URLs you hand out work, and nobody can enumerate what else is there. Public browse is deliberate enumeration. Anyone with the URL sees every object, and opening the bucket in a browser renders a file index with folders, sizes and dates. Use it for release artifacts or documentation trees, not for user uploads. Writes always require a read-write key, in every mode. Public access is independent of external access. A public mode without external access means anonymous reads work only from inside the project, which is useful when a sibling should read objects without holding a key.

Previews

A full-stack preview gets its own bucket, created when the preview deploys and destroyed with it, so preview code cannot read or overwrite production objects. A single-service preview reaches the base project’s bucket, because it is deliberately running against the base project’s live siblings. Use a preview-scoped variable or secret to point it elsewhere.

The Files tab

The Files tab is a basic browser: navigate folders, upload, download, delete, and see what the bucket holds. It is for inspection and one-off fixes. Anything routine belongs in your app, through the S3 API.

Deleting

Deleting the service, or the project that owns it, permanently destroys the bucket and everything in it. There is no undelete and no retention window. Copy out anything you need first.

Pricing

What	Rate
CPU	$8.76 per vCPU per month
Memory	$4.38 per GiB per month
Disk	$0.25 per GiB per month
Volume backups	$0.05 per GiB per month
Object storage	$0.05 per GiB per month
Egress beyond the plan allowance	$0.01 per GB

Compute is metered by the second against the allocation a service is configured with, so a service that sleeps costs nothing while it is asleep. Disk, backups and object storage are metered on what is provisioned or held, whether or not the service is running. You are billed for what the bucket stores, and nothing else:

Egress is free, however many downloads there are.
Requests are free. Uploads, listings and deletes are not metered.
The endpoint is not charged for. It runs on slipway’s side, which is why a bucket has no compute allocation and no Compute tab.

Object storage and volume backups share a rate because both are objects in the same store. A live disk costs five times more because it is a replicated block device. Usage is rounded up to whole GiB, so a bucket holding one small file is billed for one GiB. A bucket keeps costing while everything around it sleeps, because the objects are still there. Totals are counted hourly rather than live: measuring a bucket means walking every object, so slipway does it on a schedule and slows that schedule for very large buckets. The Metrics tab shows when the figure was last counted, and a large upload appears on the next pass.

FAQ

Does a downgrade delete my bucket? No. Object storage is gated at creation only. An existing bucket keeps working and only new ones are blocked. Can two services share a bucket? Yes. That is the usual reason to choose object storage over a disk, which only one service can mount.

Get started

Quickstarts

Services

Data

Deploys

Previews

slipway.yaml

Networking

Projects

Observability

Integrations

Organization

Clusters

Reference

Creating a bucket

Connecting

Access keys

External access

Public access

Previews

The Files tab

Deleting

Pricing

FAQ

​Creating a bucket

​Connecting

​Access keys

​External access

​Public access

​Previews

​The Files tab

​Deleting

​Pricing

​FAQ

Creating a bucket

Connecting

Access keys

External access

Public access

Previews

The Files tab

Deleting

Pricing

FAQ