Ashlr cover: a ring of provider dots, with the headline Set up ten services with one prompt.

Field noteEngineering

Ashlr Stack: set up your backend services with one prompt

By Ashlr.AIField notePublished Oct 17, 20264 min read

Starting a project means an hour of clicking through dashboards and pasting keys. Stack does that setup from your terminal or your AI agent.

The field note

You create a new app. Then comes the boring hour. You make a database project and copy three keys. You make a hosting token. You set up error tracking, authentication and analytics. Each step has its own dashboard and its own place to paste a secret.

Ashlr Stack collapses that hour. You run stack init with a template, or tell your agent "stack my backend". Stack signs in to each provider with that provider's own login flow, creates what the adapter supports, and records the results. The keys it receives go into Phantom Secrets and Stack's configuration, and it adds MCP entries so your agent can use the services.

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You can explore before you commit to anything. Commands such as stack providers, stack recommend and stack scan are read-only and need no accounts. The site lists 39 catalog entries. The scan command looks at an existing repository and tells you which services it already uses.

One command, stack onboard, wires Stack into the agents you have: Codex, Claude Code, Cursor and Gemini CLI. It shows a plan first, saves backups before it writes, and can undo everything.

Be aware of the status. The README calls Stack pre-alpha and in active development. The published npm release it was checked against was 0.1.1, while the source is ahead of it. That release starts with Bun, so install Bun first. Stack does not write application code, and it does not write your .env file automatically.

The Ashlr Stack home page: Stack my backend, with a constellation of provider logos. — The Stack home page at stack.ashlr.ai, captured October 17, 2026. Open the live page

What it means for your work

For builders

Run npx -y -p @ashlr/stack stack recommend with a one-line description of your app. See which services it picks and why. That alone is useful, even if you set everything up by hand.

For business

New project setup is slow, and it often gets done by your most expensive engineers. Automating it also gives you a consistent record of what was created. Check where each credential ends up before you roll it out to a team.

Put it to work

Try the read-only commands. If the recommendation matches what you would have chosen, test stack add on a throwaway account.

Explore the project

Ashlr tools connected to this story. Review their source and setup requirements.

Ashlr Stack

Provision and connect development services through CLI and MCP tools, with Phantom Secrets handling supported credential paths.

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Go to the source

Source material behind this field note. Our practical implications are Ashlr’s interpretation.

Ashlr Stack on GitHub (opens in a new tab)
Ashlr.AIOct 17, 2026
Ashlr Stack website (opens in a new tab)
Ashlr.AIOct 17, 2026

Field notes explain an engineering or business practice. They are not reports of a new event. Cover artwork is illustrative.

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