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Sign up and try CircleCI

1 month ago5 min read
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To start building on CircleCI, go to the Sign Up page. Sign up with your email address and connect your GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab account in the process.

  • If you are creating a new CircleCI org for your team, follow the Sign up and create an org steps below.

  • If you are signing up for a CircleCI account through an invite from someone on your team, follow the steps in the Sign up with an invite section.

VCS integrations

CircleCI supports GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab projects.

If you use GitHub or GitLab, and are creating a CircleCI organization for your team, you will set the version control system (VCS) integration type, and authenticate with your VCS provider during the signup process. Team members that you invite to your CircleCI org can join without authenticating with your VCS. However, if they are to create new projects, they will authenticate during the project creation process.

If you use Bitbucket, every team member signing up for a new account and joining your org will authenticate with Bitbucket during the signup process.

Sign up and create an org

If you are new to CircleCI, you will create a CircleCI organization. A CircleCI organization may correspond directly to a personal CircleCI account, or more commonly, to a shared account in which a team collaborates and with which multiple team members' personal CircleCI accounts can be associated.

  1. To create an account for free with CircleCI, enter your email address and password on the Sign Up page.

  2. On the next screen, respond to prompts that best describe your role and your engineering organization.

  3. Then, connect your code. Choose the VCS that contains your code repositories: GitHub, GitLab.com (cloud), GitLab Self-Managed, or Bitbucket.

GitHub

  1. For GitHub, you will be taken to a screen to install the CircleCI GitHub App. In this step, you can specify exactly which repositories CircleCI can access, or opt to give CircleCI access to all repositories in your GitHub organization.

  2. Next, in the Create New Project page, you will set up your first project and trigger your first pipeline in CircleCI. You need an SSH key. Add the private key on this page, and add the corresponding public key as a deploy key in GitHub. Follow the instructions on the page, or refer to the Creating a Project guide for more details.

    If you do not want to connect to your code at this time and only wish to continue with the email signup, click Cancel.

  3. You will be taken to the dashboard in the CircleCI web app. From here, you can start to trigger pipelines, create more projects, and invite team members to your org.

GitLab

  1. For GitLab, connect your code from either a GitLab.com or GitLab Self-managed account. Follow the prompts to connect to your GitLab account and create a new project. You can also refer to the Creating a Project guide for more details on this step.

    If you do not want to connect to your code at this time and only wish to continue with the email signup, click Cancel.

  2. Once you have selected a repository and created a new CircleCI project, you will be redirected to the dashboard in the CircleCI web app. From here, you can start to trigger and run project pipelines, create more projects, and invite team members to your org.

    • If you choose not to connect your code at this time, you can still explore some example projects within the CircleCI app. You can take a look at a popular open source project building on CircleCI ( React by Facebook), or one of our own sample projects: a sample JavaScript app, and a sample Python app.

      When you are ready, you can connect to your GitLab account from the CircleCI web app by creating a new project.

Bitbucket

  1. For Bitbucket, you will authenticate with your Bitbucket account and connect your code.

  2. Once you have authenticated, you will be redirected to your organization dashboard in the CircleCI web app. From here, you can start to trigger and run project pipelines, set up more projects, and invite team members to your org.

    For more details on setting up a project in CircleCI, read the Creating a Project guide.

    • If you choose not to connect your code at this time, you can still explore some example projects within the CircleCI app. You can take a look at a popular open source project building on CircleCI ( React by Facebook), or one of our own sample projects: a sample JavaScript app, and a sample Python app.

      When you are ready, you can connect your Bitbucket account from the CircleCI web app. Click your user icon in the lower left corner to open your User Settings. Under Account Integrations, click Connect to authorize with Bitbucket and start setting up your projects.

Sign up with an invite

If you are signing up using an invite from a team member, you will be joining a CircleCI organization. The CircleCI organization is a shared account where a team collaborates, and with which multiple team members' personal CircleCI accounts can be associated.

  1. To create an account for free with CircleCI, follow the link in your invite email and enter your email address and password.

  2. On the next screen, respond to prompts that best describe your role and your engineering organization.

  3. Finally, you will be taken to your organization’s pipelines dashboard in the CircleCI web app. From here, you can follow projects or trigger pipelines in projects to which you have access in your organization, or set up new projects.

Note that if you are setting up a project for the first time, you may need to authenticate with your VCS provider. Once you have completed a one-time authentication, you will be able to set up subsequent projects in CircleCI more quickly. Refer to the Creating a Project guide for more information.

Guides for integrating GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab projects are available as follows:

Terms

By signing up, you are agreeing to our SaaS Agreement and Privacy Policy. We ask for read/write access to make your experience seamless on CircleCI. If you are a GitHub user and aren’t ready to share access to your private projects, you can choose public repos instead. Protected by reCAPTCHA, Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Next steps

  • Read the Invite your team page for steps on adding team members to your CircleCI org.

  • Go to the Hello World page to learn the basics of setting up a CircleCI configuration file.

  • Read the Concepts page for an overview of foundational CircleCI concepts such as pipelines, executors.

  • Refer to the full CircleCI configuration reference for creating a .circleci/config.yml file, which determines your execution environment and automates your tests.


Help make this document better

This guide, as well as the rest of our docs, are open source and available on GitHub. We welcome your contributions.

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