# Prerequisites

Here is the list of prerequisites to start your journey with the Flashback platform:

* [Supported Browsers](#supported-browsers)
* [Vendors' Cloud Accounts](#vendors-cloud-accounts)
* [CLI and SDK Tools](#cli-and-sdk-tools)
* [Supported Platform Services](#platform-services)
* [Future Platform Capabilities](#future-platform-capabilities)

***

## Supported Browsers

Latest stable Chrome, Firefox, or Safari (ensure JavaScript and cookies are enabled).

***

## Vendors' Cloud Accounts

Flashback is a solution that connects you to your existing provider, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic AI, StorJ or Filecoin's Akave.

<table><thead><tr><th width="225">Provider</th><th width="271.2000732421875">Account Creation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>AWS</strong></td><td><a href="https://www.amazon.com/ap/register?_encoding=UTF8&#x26;openid.assoc_handle=usflex&#x26;openid.claimed_id=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/identifier_select&#x26;openid.identity=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/identifier_select&#x26;openid.mode=checkid_setup&#x26;openid.ns=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0&#x26;openid.ns.pape=http://specs.openid.net/extensions/pape/1.0&#x26;openid.pape.max_auth_age=0&#x26;openid.return_to=https://www.amazon.com/gp/yourstore/home?ie%3DUTF8%26ref_%3Dnav_newcust">Create account</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>GCP</strong></td><td><a href="https://console.cloud.google.com/freetrial/signup">Signup</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Azure</strong></td><td><a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/azure-account">Build in the cloud with an Azure account</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>StorJ</strong></td><td><a href="https://us1.storj.io/signup">Signup</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Akave</strong></td><td><a href="https://akave.com/free-trial">Try Akave Cloud for free today</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>OpenAI</strong></td><td><a href="https://platform.openai.com/login">Welcome</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Anthropic AI</strong></td><td><a href="https://console.anthropic.com/">Start With</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

We recommend you to visit the documentation of your favorite cloud providers to learn how to set up efficiently your resource enabler (storage, AI LLMs, and more).

***

## CLI and SDK Tools

You can use native CLI and SDK of providers to help you to configure your resources:

• Preferred post-2020 versions of programming language version for SDK integrations.

<table><thead><tr><th width="225">Provider</th><th width="271.2000732421875">Command Line Interface</th><th>Software Development Kit</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>AWS</strong></td><td><a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-welcome.html">What is the AWS Command Line Interface?</a></td><td><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/developer/tools/">Toolbox</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>GCP</strong></td><td><a href="https://cloud.google.com/cli?hl=en">Google Cloud Command Line Interface (gcloud CLI)</a></td><td><a href="https://cloud.google.com/appengine/downloads">Download and install Google Cloud SDK</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Azure</strong></td><td><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/bs-latn-ba/cli/azure/?view=azure-cli-latest">Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) documentation</a></td><td><a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/">SDKs and tools for managing and interacting with Azure services</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>OpenAI</strong></td><td>Not found</td><td><a href="https://platform.openai.com/docs/libraries">Libraries</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Anthropic AI</strong></td><td><a href="https://code.claude.com/docs/en/cli-reference">CLI Reference</a></td><td><a href="https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/client-sdks">Client SDKs</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

For cloud storage, you can also use the S3-compatible APIs (non-exhaustive list):

<table><thead><tr><th width="325">Provider</th><th width="420.800048828125">S3-compatible APIs</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>StorJ</strong></td><td><a href="https://storj.dev/learn/concepts/s3-compatibility">S3 Compatibility</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Akave</strong></td><td><a href="https://docs.akave.xyz/akave-o3/">Akave O3</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>MinIO (on-prem)</strong></td><td><a href="https://www.min.io/product/aistor/s3-compatibility">S3 Compatible Storage</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

#### Basic Cloud-Storage Knowledge

• Understanding buckets, objects, ACLs, IAM roles, signed URLs.\
• Familiarity with uploading/downloading via CLI or REST APIs.

***

## Supported Platform Services

### Object Storage

Find and understand the different object storage solutions from the providers.

<table><thead><tr><th width="225">Provider</th><th>Object Storage Creation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>AWS</strong></td><td><a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/GetStartedWithS3.html">Getting started with Amazon S3</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>GCP</strong></td><td><a href="https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/creating-buckets">Create a bucket</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Azure</strong></td><td><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-account-create?tabs=azure-portal">Create an Azure storage account</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>StorJ</strong></td><td><a href="https://storj.dev/learn/tutorials/quickstart-uplink-cli/uploading-your-first-object/create-a-bucket">Create a bucket</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Akave (Filecoin)</strong></td><td><a href="https://docs.akave.xyz/akave-o3/bucket-management/create-list-delete-buckets/">Create a bucket</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

We recommend you to visit the documentation of your favorite cloud providers supporting S3-compatible APIs to learn how to set up efficiently your storage enabler.

### AI LLMs

Find and understand the different AI LLM solutions from the providers.

<table><thead><tr><th width="225">Provider</th><th>Start with AI LLMs</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>AWS</strong></td><td><a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/getting-started.html">Getting started with Amazon Bedrock</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>GCP</strong></td><td><a href="https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/docs/generative-ai/learn/overview">Vertex AI generative AI overview</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Azure</strong></td><td><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/openai/overview">Azure OpenAI Service overview</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>OpenAI</strong></td><td><a href="https://platform.openai.com/docs/quickstart">OpenAI API quickstart</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Anthropic AI</strong></td><td><a href="https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs">Anthropic Claude documentation</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Before using AI LLM features through Flashback, we recommend:

• Having at least one active AI provider account (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, GCP, or Azure).\
• Being able to create and manage API keys, secrets, and usage quotas.\
• Basic understanding of JSON, HTTP APIs, and prompt/response patterns.\
• Clarity on security practices (environment variables, key rotation, role-based access).

We recommend you to visit the documentation of your preferred AI providers to learn how to provision models, configure authentication, and monitor usage safely.

***

## Future Platform Capabilities

The following sections describe the prerequisites that will help you prepare for upcoming Flashback features described in the “What’s Coming Next” roadmap.

### AI Engine Aggregation

Prerequisites to get value from unified AI engine aggregation:

• Accounts and API keys for two or more AI providers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI).\
• A clear mapping between projects/teams and the AI providers they are allowed to use (for policy-based routing).\
• Basic familiarity with model families (chat, embeddings, vision, tools/function calling) and their typical use cases.\
• Centralized way to store secrets (e.g., secret manager, vault, or environment management in your CI/CD pipeline).

### Agentic Self-Management

Prerequisites to let agentic systems observe and optimize your workloads:

• Existing monitoring or logging setup for your applications (metrics, logs, traces), even if basic.\
• Clear SLOs or target KPIs for cost, latency, and reliability (e.g., max €/month, P95 latency, uptime %).\
• Permissions for Flashback to read observability data and, in controlled scopes, adjust policies or routing.\
• A staging/sandbox environment to safely test agent-driven changes before applying them to production.

### Multi-Cloud Compute & Serverless Functions

Prerequisites to extend from storage into cross-cloud compute:

• Cloud accounts with permissions to create and manage compute resources (VMs, containers, serverless functions) on at least one provider.\
• A container registry or build pipeline if you deploy containerized workloads (e.g., Docker images).\
• Basic understanding of networking concepts (VPC/VNet, subnets, security groups, egress rules) on your main cloud.\
• SSH or API-based access patterns already defined for your applications, so Flashback can orchestrate them consistently.

### Structured and Specialized Data Layers

Prerequisites to connect databases, warehouses, and analytics engines:

• At least one structured data system in use (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, BigQuery, Snowflake, data warehouse, or OLAP engine).\
• Ability to create read-only and read-write roles on your databases or warehouses.\
• Network access patterns defined for data systems (e.g., private endpoints, IP allowlists, VPN/peering).\
• Basic understanding of SQL and/or analytical query patterns to define which workloads should be federated through Flashback.

### DePIN-Native Governance & Incentives

Prerequisites to participate in decentralized governance and incentive mechanisms:

• A secure, organization-managed wallet solution (custodial or non-custodial) to interact with supported blockchains.\
• Internal policies for who can sign on-chain transactions and how keys are backed up and rotated.\
• Basic familiarity with staking, delegation, and reward distributions, especially for infrastructure-related tokens.\
• Compliance review for your jurisdiction regarding the use of digital assets in operations and incentives.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.flashback.tech/getting-started/prerequisites.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.