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Overview

Starting from version 0.6.0, self-hosted deployments include a dedicated System Admin area. Think of it as the place where you manage things that belong to the whole instance, not just a single project. That includes:
  • Instance metadata and policies
  • Authentication behavior
  • Instance-level subscription and licensing
  • Global user management
  • Global project management
Open System Admin from the account menu in the bottom-left corner of the app.

First-time setup

On a fresh self-hosted deployment, the first person who opens the site will be asked to set up the first admin account. This account becomes the instance’s first System Admin. After setup, you can open System Admin from the account menu to manage:
  • instance settings
  • authentication policy
  • instance subscription
  • users
  • projects
If you’re upgrading an older self-hosted deployment and you don’t yet have any System Admin, assign that permission manually first. A simple PostgreSQL example looks like this:
UPDATE "User"
SET "isSystemAdmin" = true
WHERE email = 'your-admin@example.com';
After that user signs in again, the System Admin entry will appear in the account menu.
For version 0.5.0 and earlier, self-hosted deployments still seed a default bootstrap admin account: Email: lisa@simpson.com Password: secret42
The current System Admin navigation includes:
  • General
  • Authentication
  • Subscription
  • Users
  • Projects
The idea is simple:
  • General and Authentication are instance-level settings
  • Subscription is where instance licensing lives
  • Users and Projects are global management pages

General

The General page is where you manage basic instance information and a few global behaviors.
  • Instance ID Read-only identifier used for instance-scoped licensing
  • Instance Name Friendly name for identifying the deployment
  • System Admin Contact Email Contact email for the instance
  • Allow project-level subscription management Controls whether self-hosted projects show a project-level Subscription entry in project settings
When Allow project-level subscription management is disabled:
  • the project settings sidebar no longer shows Subscription
  • instance-level subscription becomes the preferred management entry point
  • existing project licenses continue to work

Authentication

The Authentication page is intentionally small right now. It currently exposes one instance-wide policy:
  • Allow new user registration
When enabled:
  • users can create new accounts from the public signup flow
When disabled:
  • public signup is blocked
  • system admins can still create users from System Admin > Users
  • invite-based join flows continue to work
  • existing users can still sign in with enabled auth providers

Subscription

The Subscription page is the main place to manage instance-level licensing in self-hosted mode. From here you can:
  • review the current instance plan
  • copy the Instance ID
  • paste an instance license
  • review project usage against the current instance license
For most self-hosted setups, this is the licensing page you’ll use most often. The current System Admin subscription flow uses a write-only license field. Paste the instance license, submit it, and the stored license text will not be shown again afterward. For a full explanation of instance-level vs. project-level licensing, see License Management.

Users

The Users page gives you instance-wide user management. This is where you can:
  • search users by name or email
  • add users directly with a password
  • disable or re-enable users
  • grant or remove System Admin access
When public registration is disabled, this page becomes the main entry point for creating users.

Projects

The Projects page gives you a top-level view of every project in the instance. From here you can:
  • search projects by name
  • create a new project
  • inspect project owners and member counts
  • open project member management
  • add or remove members
  • control whether a project uses the instance license when applicable
If your instance license has a limited project allowance, this page is also where you decide which projects should use it. If the instance license is unlimited, projects can inherit it automatically.

Project-level vs. instance-level subscription

Self-hosted Usertour supports both:
  • project-level subscription
  • instance-level subscription
In practice, most teams will want to use instance-level subscription as the default and only use project-level subscription when a specific project needs separate handling. The Allow project-level subscription management setting helps reduce duplicate entry points in the UI without taking away support for project licenses.

Next steps

After configuring System Admin, you may also want to review: