Register a Worker

A worker is a machine running Podman (or Docker) that executes containers on behalf of the orchestrator. Registration is a one-time step where the CLI selects a tenant and generates a worker identity.

Prerequisites

• CLI installed and authenticated (cropscode login)
• Podman (or Docker) installed and running on this machine
• Network access to the orchestrator (outbound only — no inbound ports needed)

Quick path

cropscode onboard

The onboard wizard checks everything (auth, tenant selection, orchestrator reachability, container runtime, disk/memory) and fixes issues automatically.

Manual path

Start the worker

cropscode worker

On first run, the CLI:

1. Checks your authentication
2. Fetches available tenants from the orchestrator
3. Lets you pick a tenant (or auto-selects if there’s only one)
4. Saves the worker config to ~/.cropscode/worker.json
5. Starts the worker daemon

On subsequent runs, it reads the saved config and starts immediately.

Verify

cropscode status

You should see:

  User:          you@example.com
  Worker:        a1b2c3d4
  Tenant:        your-tenant
  Orchestrator:  console.cropscode.io
  Connection:    Connected

The worker also appears in the orchestrator dashboard under the Workers panel.

Health check

Run cropscode doctor at any time to verify the worker’s health:

cropscode doctor

It checks: authentication, worker registration, orchestrator connectivity, WSL2 (Windows only), container runtime (Podman/Docker), disk space, and available memory.

Multi-machine setup

Repeat these steps on each machine you want to connect. Workers connect outbound — no inbound ports needed, works behind NAT and firewalls.

Next steps

• Quickstart — launch your first container
• Self-hosting: Requirements — hardware and network requirements
• Self-hosting: Worker Agent — how the agent works internally