Start a community
Starting a Betat community means creating a permanent, verified record for a type of human knowledge that your community originates. You decide what your community verifies, how members authenticate, and what standards submissions must meet — within the Betat protocol floor that every community shares.
Once your community is running, members can enroll, submit content, and receive provenance records. Anyone in the world can read those records, free, forever.
Before you begin
Starting a community requires one person who can set up and run a server, or is willing to use a cloud hosting platform. The Betat framework is software that runs on a server — it is not a hosted service that betat.org provides (though hosted options are in the roadmap). If your community does not have a technical person, see the options below.
What you will need:
- A domain name your community controls (e.g.
archive.yourcommunity.org) — this becomes your community’s permanent unique identity - A server running Linux, or a cloud hosting account
- Python 3.11 or later on that server
- A clear sense of what type of knowledge your community will verify
What you will decide during setup:
- Your community’s name and the knowledge domain it covers
- The type of content it verifies (scientific observation, oral knowledge, creative work, academic writing, or another type)
- How members authenticate — peer vouching, cryptographic keys, or institutional identity
- The URI where your records will be published
Installation paths
Choose the path that matches your situation.
Option 1 — Install with pip (for technical operators)
If you have a Linux server and Python 3.11:
pip install betat-community
betat init
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py runserver
betat init walks you through community setup in your terminal. manage.py runserver starts the framework. Visit localhost:8000 in your browser to confirm it is running, then configure your domain and a production server for public access.
Two standard Django commands worth knowing as you go:
python manage.py check --deploy # production-readiness checks (SECRET_KEY, DEBUG, HTTPS)
python manage.py shell # interactive Python shell with the framework loaded
Full reference: Framework CLI
Option 2 — Browser setup wizard (for less technical operators)
After pip install betat-community and python manage.py runserver, visit your server in a browser. If the community is not yet configured, you will see the Betat installation screen. Click Begin setup to walk through configuration in the browser — no terminal commands after the initial install.
Option 3 — One-click cloud deploy (coming soon)
A “Deploy to Render” button is coming to this page. It will let you deploy a Betat community instance to a cloud server with a single click — no terminal, no server management. You will need a free account on the hosting platform and a domain name.
Watch the GitHub repository for this when it launches.
Option 4 — Ask for help
If none of the above fits your community’s situation, reach out. During the early period of Betat’s launch, the founder is available to remotely assist communities setting up their first instance as a volunteer service.
Contact: open a discussion on GitHub and describe your community and what you are trying to archive.
What your community commits to
When you start a Betat community, your community makes permanent commitments through the protocol:
Your community id never changes. The domain you register becomes your community’s identity forever — even if you later move hosting or change the domain’s website, the community id is fixed.
Your standards can only strengthen. The HI standard you set at launch is the floor. Future decisions can add requirements; they cannot remove them. This protects the meaning of records already issued.
Records are permanent. Every provenance record your community issues is append-only — it cannot be deleted or modified. Corrections and disputes are new records, not erasures.
These commitments exist because they are what makes the HI tag trustworthy. A provenance record from a community that can quietly change or delete its records is not a record worth trusting.
After setup
Once your community is running:
- Enroll your first verifiers (staff users via
manage.py createsuperuser) - Invite your first Provenanciers to enroll
- Submit and verify your first provenance record
- Optionally, register with the Betat registry when it launches so other communities and readers can discover yours
Questions
Open a discussion on GitHub or read the full technical documentation in For Builders.
Betat. The human record, for the other person.