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These docs are current for version v0.0.5.
Welcome to Alto! Alto is the easiest way to run your code on the cloud. Although primarily designed for Prism projects, Alto can be used to execute any arbitrary code (e.g., a function, a script, a Jupyter notebook, or an entire project) in custom cloud environments. At the moment, Alto is BYOC - bring your own cloud. You supply the cloud account, and Alto will take care of provisioning the exact resources required. In future versions, we’ll offer the option for users to run their code on Alto’s own infrastructure.

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CHANGELOG

Alto used to be called Nomad. Here are the main differences between this version and the previous version (nomad v0.0.4):
In previous versions of Alto, users could only run their code on the agent’s runtime environment itself. In this version, users can run their code in a Docker image inside the agent. They can do so with the image key:
my_agent_name:
  infra:
    - type: ec2
    ...
  image:
    type: docker
    base: python:3.10.8-slim-bullseye
    registry: dockerhub
    registry_creds:
      username: ...
      password: ...
  requirements: ...
...
The description for each of these nested keys can be found here.

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Why use Alto?

Great question! Alto allows users to easily scale their code from their local machine to the cloud. There are several scenarios in which this can be helpful:
  • Scalability: certain agents (e.g., EC2 instances, EMR clusters) allow you to scale your project’s execution vertically and horizontally. You can choose instance types with varying compute power to match your project’s resource requirements. Additionally, you can leverage auto-scaling capabilities to automatically adjust the number of instances based on demand.
  • Collaboration: we’ve all heard the age-old phrase “but it works on my machine!” When working with a team, it’s likely that different team members will have different system configurations and environments. As a result, projects may work on one developer’s machine but fail on others. Alto mitigate against this this, ensuring that their code runs consistently across different systems.
  • Deployment: Alto allow users to test their projects whatever infrastructure they like. If your organization uses custom infrastructure, then this helps ensure that your projects do not break once they are deployed.

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Guides: Jump right in

Quickstart

Install and create your first Alto project

Agents

Configure your cloud infrastrastructure via an agent

CLI

Manage your project via our powerful CLI
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