canvas-drop
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canvas-drop

canvas-drop is an open-source, self-hostable platform where members of an organization deploy and share small web artifacts called canvases. A canvas is just static files (HTML, CSS, JS, images). Drop them in and they're live at a URL your colleagues can open.

The constraint is the product: a small set of primitives, done well, instead of a general-purpose hosting platform. Canvases run with no build step and no secrets in the page, and they gain backend capability only through five primitives (KV, files, AI, identity, realtime) exposed by a zero-config browser SDK.

Status: v1 is feature-complete and hardening toward a public release. The Docker image, one-command compose, MCP server, and examples have all shipped. The remaining ops/packaging work (M10) is proving the backup/restore round-trip, a single-VPS load test, and a colleague IAP pilot. See Self-hosting → Install.

What you can build

Prototypes, dashboards, demos, microsites, small games, internal tools: anything that communicates better as a working artifact than as a screenshot or a slide.

How it fits together

  • Publish a canvas four ways: paste a single index.html, drag a folder of files, upload a .zip, or call the deploy API with a per-canvas key. Agents can ship without a human in the loop, either over that HTTP API or through the built-in MCP server at {base}/mcp. You can also edit in the browser and Publish from the draft.
  • Add backend capability with the browser SDK at {base}/sdk/v1.js: key-value storage, file storage, the signed-in viewer's identity (me()), AI, and realtime. The owner opts a canvas into backend (off by default), then toggles kv, files, ai, and realtime independently; me() is on whenever backend is on. AI needs a provider key configured on the instance, and realtime needs the operator's realtime switch on.
  • Version and roll back. Every publish is an immutable version (last 10 kept); one-click Make current switches the served version in either direction.
  • Share the URL on a per-canvas access rung: private (owner only), specific_people (signed-in members plus auth-delegated pending emails), team (members of selected teams), whole_org (any signed-in member with the link), or public_link (anyone with the link, static-only while the instance switch is on and the owner account has not been revoked). Layer on a per-canvas password or a share expiry. Team and Whole-org shares can stay link-only or be listed in Shared for people who already have access; the gallery is only for Public-link canvases and Whole-org canvases their owners explicitly add. The Whole-org gallery action also enables member discovery, and that entry remains scoped to the canvas's home org. A canvas must be published before any shared rung takes effect. With an optional org boundary configured, whole_org is scoped to the canvas's home org and external people are kept out unless they are named directly.

Where to go next

Examples and URLs in these docs use {base} (your instance's base URL) and localhost placeholders. Substitute your own instance's address.

Quickstart →