Onboard a tenant

Fill in the merchant details. Overlay generates the tenant config, tells you the exact env vars to add on Render, and gives you the DNS steps. ~5 min end-to-end.

Overlay master key

Not stored — only sent with this form submission. Set OVERLAY_MASTER_KEY on Render if you haven't already.

Identity

Tenant ID

Lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens. Becomes the directory name at tenants/<id>/ and prefixes every env var.

Merchant name Short name (optional)

Used in tight spaces (email subject lines, headers). Defaults to the merchant name.

Legal entity name (optional)

Domain

Domain(s) — comma-separated

Every domain listed will resolve to this tenant. Include www if you want both to work.

POS backend

Backend

Owner + address (optional)

Owner name Street address City State (2 letters) ZIP Phone From email for outbound mail (optional)

✅ Tenant created

Your shop key (save this now — shown once)

This is the merchant's admin key. Give it to them — they log in at https://<their-domain>/admin. It's stored as an env var on Render (see the checklist below) and can be rotated any time by regenerating.

Env vars to set on Render

Add each of these on Render → your service → Environment. Copy-paste ready.

DNS

Email — DKIM records to add for their SES sending

The tenant sends outbound mail via Overlay's hosted SES account with their own domain as the From address. These three CNAME records let AWS verify their domain. Once added and propagated (usually 15 minutes to a few hours), sending works automatically.

Onboard a tenant

Identity

Domain

POS backend

Owner + address (optional)

✅ Tenant created

Your shop key (save this now — shown once)

Env vars to set on Render

DNS

Email — DKIM records to add for their SES sending

Activation steps

Config written to disk