Quick Start
Up and running in 5 minutes
Follow these six steps to connect your first Kubernetes cluster, explore the dashboard, and start optimizing your infrastructure.
Create Your Account
Sign up for a free Substrate account. No credit card required. You'll get instant access to the dashboard and all platform features.
Sign up at substratecore.com/signup -- takes less than 30 seconds.
Create an Environment
Environments help you organize clusters, deployments, and team members. Create your first environment from the dashboard sidebar.
In the dashboard sidebar, click Environments → New Environment.
Enter a name (e.g. "my-app") and optional description, then click Create.Environments support team-level RBAC, so you can control who has access to what.
Connect a Cluster
Register an existing Kubernetes cluster or provision a new one on AWS EKS, Azure AKS, or Google GKE. Import takes just a few clicks.
Navigate to Clusters → Import.
Upload your kubeconfig file (or paste its contents),
select the context, give the cluster a name (e.g. "prod-us-east"),
and click Connect.Substrate supports any Kubernetes cluster -- managed, self-hosted, or on-premise.
Explore the Dashboard
Once your cluster is connected, the dashboard shows nodes, namespaces, deployments, and resource utilization in real time.
Navigate to your cluster to see nodes, pods, events, and resource metrics at a glance.
Enable Monitoring
Turn on real-time resource tracking to get live CPU, memory, and network metrics across all your nodes and pods.
On the cluster detail page, click Start Monitoring.
Metrics will begin streaming within seconds.Monitoring uses WebSocket connections for instant updates -- no polling delays.
Optimize Costs
Enable the autoscaling engine to analyze your workloads and generate rightsizing recommendations. Review and approve optimizations from the dashboard.
On the cluster detail page, open the Cost Optimization tab
and click Enable Autoscaler. Choose an analysis window
(e.g. 7 days) and click Save.Most teams see their first cost savings recommendations within 24 hours.
Ready to get started?
Create your free account and connect your first cluster in under five minutes.
Start free