---
title: "Welcome"
description: "What Orbit is, the three ideas behind it, and where to start reading."
canonical: "https://orbit-handbook.sitesmojo.com/docs/welcome/"
---

# Welcome to Orbit

Orbit is a deploy orchestrator for teams who want releases to be **boring**.
You describe your services once in `orbit.yaml`; Orbit plans every release,
shows you the diff, and applies it the same way every time - from a laptop or
from CI.

Three ideas run through everything in this handbook:

1. **Plan before apply.** Every deploy starts as a plan you can read.
   Since 0.4, `orbit deploy` shows the diff and waits for a yes.
2. **One config, every environment.** Environments are overlays on one
   `orbit.yaml`, so staging drifts from production only when you say so.
3. **Rollback is a first-class verb.** Every release is kept, addressable,
   and revertible in seconds - not a redeploy, a pointer flip.

## Where to start

- New to Orbit? Read [Getting Started](/docs/getting-started/) - first
  deploy in about five minutes.
- Setting up a machine or CI runner? See [Installation](/docs/installation/).
- Wiring up a real project? [Configuration](/docs/configuration/) covers the
  whole of `orbit.yaml`.
- Curious how a release actually ships? Start at
  [Deployments](/docs/deployments/).

> Orbit is a **fictional product** - this site is a live demo of Mojo Sites
> hosting, with this handbook and the [Field Notes blog](/blog/) published as
> mounted books.