Instance admin

An instance admin runs a whole Brainitive installation: accounts, sign-up rules, email delivery and the instance-wide GitHub App. This section is for people who self-host Brainitive.

Using Brainitive Cloud?

On Brainitive Cloud the Brainitive team runs the instance for you. What you manage is your workspace, see Workspaces and projects. The legal settings for your public pages apply to Cloud workspaces too.

Instance admin vs. workspace owner and admin

Brainitive has two separate kinds of "admin":

	Instance admin	Workspace owner / admin
Scope	The whole installation	One workspace
Manages	All accounts, sign-up, email (SMTP), GitHub App, audit log	Members, roles, projects, workspace settings
Reads workspace content	No, only names, emails, counts and dates	Yes, in their own workspace
Where	Avatar menu → Instance admin	Avatar menu → Workspace settings

Instance admins can't read workspace content. They see only the workspaces they've been invited to, like everyone else. The Admin console shows metadata only: names, email addresses, counts and dates, never pages, boards or issues.

Make someone an instance admin

The first account on a new installation is not an admin automatically. You make the first admin from the server's command line:

1. Open your installation in the browser and register an account.

2. On the server, run:

   # Docker
   docker compose exec app php artisan make:instance-admin you@example.com
   
   # Without Docker, in the app folder
   php artisan make:instance-admin you@example.com

3. Reload Brainitive. Your avatar → Instance admin is now in the menu.

The command also marks the account's email address as verified, so you get in even before email delivery works.

After that you can promote more people from the console: Instance admin → Users → ⋯ → Make instance admin. See Users.

Two more commands help on the server:

Command	What it does
php artisan list:instance-admins	Lists every instance admin
php artisan remove:instance-admin you@example.com	Takes the role away from that account

WARNING

An installation always needs at least one instance admin. In the console you can't remove or suspend the last one, or delete their account.

The Admin console

Open it from your avatar → Instance admin. It has these tabs:

Tab	What you do there
Overview	Instance health at a glance (see below)
Users	Add, verify, suspend and delete accounts, send password reset links, grant the admin role. Users
Workspaces	See owner, members and projects; transfer ownership or delete a workspace. Workspaces
Settings	Open or invite-only sign-up, email verification, your SMTP server and a test email. Instance settings
GitHub App	Create the GitHub App that projects use to connect repositories. GitHub integration
Emails	Preview every email Brainitive sends and send a test to yourself. Emails
Audit log	Every action taken in the console. Audit log

Overview

The Overview page shows:

• Counts: users (and how many are new in the last 30 days), active users in the last 30 days, workspaces, projects, pages, boards and issues, helpdesks and tickets, and instance admins.
• Accounts: suspended accounts, accounts whose email isn't verified, whether sign-up is open to everyone or invitation only, and whether email verification is required.
• System: PHP and Laravel versions, database type and size, the space used by uploaded files, which mailer sends email, the queue, and the number of failed background jobs.

If email is only written to the log (the default MAIL_MAILER=log of a fresh install), a yellow banner warns that password resets, invitations and notifications never reach anyone, with a link to Set up an SMTP server.

Also on this site

• Self-hosting to install and update Brainitive
• Configuration for the .env settings
• Legal pages for the imprint, privacy policy and terms of your installation