Launch Your First Instance
This walks you from an empty workspace to your first published figure on a managed compute instance. Plan for about 5–10 minutes—most of it is the machine provisioning while you grab a coffee.
1. Launch an instance
In the GoFigr web app, open the Compute view and click Launch compute instance. The launch dialog has three short sections:
Instance — give it a Name you'll recognize (e.g. Lung-cancer analysis).
Machine — pick a Tier (machine type) and a data Volume size. Standard (2 vCPU, 4 GB) is selected by default and is plenty for most notebooks; you can change it later. The default volume is 10 GiB.
Auto-shutdown — leave Auto-stop on idle on so the machine parks itself when you step away. See idle auto-stop.
The dialog shows an Estimated cost table (hourly, 24/7, and a typical 8 h/day) so there are no surprises. Click Launch.
Provisioning takes about 5–10 minutes. You don't have to wait on the page—we'll email you when the instance is ready. You can watch it move through Launching → Initializing → Starting services → Running.
2. Connect
When the status reaches Running, the Jupyter, code-server, and R Server buttons light up. Click one to open that editor in a new browser tab:
Jupyter — JupyterLab, for interactive Python notebooks.
code-server — code-server in the browser, with the GoFigr extension installed.
R Server — for R notebooks, R Markdown, and Quarto.
All three edit the same files, so it doesn't matter which you start with. See Working in your instance for the details of each.
3. Run the example and publish a figure
You don't need to configure anything—this machine is already connected to your GoFigr account. Your home directory comes seeded with a welcome doc (START-HERE.md) and a ready-to-run example.
In JupyterLab, open examples/tcga_lung_classifier.ipynb and run it top to bottom. As it runs, each figure is published to your GoFigr account together with the code, data, and environment that produced it.
In R Server, open examples/tcga_lung_analysis.qmd—the same analysis as a Quarto report—and render it. library(gofigR) is already installed and configured, so figures publish as the report runs.
Open app.gofigr.io and watch the figures appear in your workspace, each linked to the exact code that created it.
New to publishing with GoFigr? The Quick Start explains how capture works. The only difference on a managed instance: there's no gfconfig step—it's done for you.
4. Stop when you're done
Compute bills per minute only while an instance is Running. When you finish, use the instance's Stop action (or just let idle auto-stop handle it). Your files are preserved—start the instance again any time and pick up where you left off.
Next steps
Working in your instance — Jupyter, code-server, and R Server
Lifecycle & persistence — what persists, and idle auto-stop
Choosing a machine type — sizing your instance
Compute & storage charges — how billing works
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