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Quickstart

Get a working sqi farm running and your first job submitted in a few minutes. Two paths: native binaries (recommended for a real farm) or Docker Compose (fastest to try). Both end at the same place: the web UI at http://localhost:8080.

Option A — Binaries (all-in-one, simple mode)

  1. Download and extract the release archive for your platform from https://github.com/uberware/sqi/releases/latest (see worker deployment for the exact commands). Each archive contains both sqi-server and sqi-worker.

  2. Start the server (scheduler, REST API, web UI, embedded NATS, SQLite): 

    ./sqi-server serve
    It listens on http://localhost:8080 (UI) and NATS on :4222 with zero config.

  3. Start a worker on the same or another machine. On a LAN it finds the server automatically via mDNS: 

    ./sqi-worker start
    Off-LAN or in doubt, point it explicitly with the server's NATS URL: 
    SQI_WORKER_NATS_URL=nats://<server-host>:4222 ./sqi-worker start

  4. Continue to "Submit your first job" below.

Option B — Docker Compose

curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/uberware/sqi/v0.2.0/deploy/docker-compose.yml
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d

This starts a server and one worker, wired together. Open http://localhost:8080. The worker container has no DCC software — for real render work, build a custom worker image or bind-mount your tools (see worker Docker guide).

Submit your first job

On first startup the server seeds a default farm and queue, so there's nothing to set up first — just open the web UI and submit a built-in product.

  1. Open http://localhost:8080 and click Submit.
  2. Under Built In, pick Run a Shell Command.
  3. In the Command field, enter:
echo hello world
  1. The Queue is already set to default and the job is given a name automatically — adjust either if you like — then click Submit job.
  2. You land on the job's page. As soon as a worker picks it up you'll see it run with live logs, and the task output shows hello world.

If no worker is connected yet, the job waits in pending until one starts (Option A, step 3). With a worker running it finishes in seconds.

Need a raw OpenJD template instead of a product? Use Submit → Advanced: submit a raw OpenJD template.

Prefer the API or Python?

The default farm and queue already exist, so you can submit straight to the built-in script product — no farm/queue creation needed. See Submit a job from a product for the REST call, or the Python client for scripted submission.

Submitting from inside Maya/Houdini/Nuke/Blender

Rather than the web UI, artists can submit directly from the DCC they're already working in. The sqi-submitter Python package adds an in-application submit dialog (native panel for Blender) to Maya, Houdini, Nuke, and Blender, driven by the same product catalog — including six ready-to-install reference render presets — with scene path, frame range, and render-target pre-fill. See DCC submitters for installation per host.

Next steps