Fleet deployment

You have a single machine working. Now you need 10, or 100, or 1,000 machines running the same software with the same configuration. Fleet deployment is how you get there without configuring each machine by hand.

The shift from one machine to a fleet usually starts to matter around 50 machines, when manually tracking which machine runs which version stops being feasible. Three properties change when Viam runs your fleet:

• The cloud config is the source of truth. Each machine pulls its configuration from Viam Cloud and converges to it. A local edit on a single device cannot silently drift the device away from the rest of the fleet.
• Machines connect outbound. Each machine reaches Viam Cloud over an outbound gRPC connection. No port-forwarding, reverse SSH tunnels, or VPN setup is required at customer sites.
• Rollouts are central, not per-device. Modules and ML models are versioned packages in the registry. Rolling out a change is a tag move on a fragment, not a script that runs against each device.

Three core mechanisms

Viam’s fleet deployment is built on three mechanisms that work together:

Fragments: configuration templates

A fragment is a reusable block of configuration. You define the components, services, modules, and settings a machine needs in a fragment, then apply that fragment to every machine in your fleet. When you update the fragment, every machine that uses it receives the change.

Fragments support three customization mechanisms:

• Variables for per-machine values like sensor names or thresholds.
• Version tags for controlled rollouts: test on a few machines before deploying fleet-wide.
• Overrides for device-specific settings that differ from the template.

Provisioning: automated first-boot setup

For machines you ship to customers or deploy in the field, provisioning (sometimes called zero-touch provisioning) automates the first-boot experience. You install viam-agent on a device during manufacturing with a defaults file that specifies which fragment to use. When someone powers on the device, viam-agent creates a WiFi hotspot or Bluetooth connection, the user provides network credentials through a mobile app or captive portal, and the machine configures itself from the fragment automatically.

The module registry: versioned software delivery

Modules and ML models are stored as versioned packages in the Viam registry. When you configure a module or model on a machine (directly or through a fragment), the machine downloads the correct version for its platform. When you upload a new version, machines configured to track that version update over the air automatically. Maintenance windows let you control when updates happen so machines are not interrupted during operation.

What you can do

How fleet deployment fits with other sections

• Get started covers setting up a single machine. Start there if you haven’t created your first machine yet.
• Configure hardware covers adding components and services to a machine. Use fragments to templatize those configurations for your fleet.
• Build and deploy modules covers writing and uploading modules. This section covers deploying those modules to machines.
• Train ML models covers training models. This section covers deploying trained models fleet-wide.
• Monitor and operate covers per-machine logs, metrics, and live operation. This section covers fleet-wide rollout state and version management.
• Admin and access covers organizations, members, and role-based access. This section covers what runs on machines, not who can change it.
• Viam CLI covers fleet operations from the command line: checking machine status, viewing logs, shell access, and file transfer.