Infrastructure¶
BNI operates a multi-cloud architecture optimised for cost at early stage, with a clear upgrade path as revenue and grants grow. AWS is the preferred deep-infrastructure provider given existing skillsets, supplemented by specialised free-tier platforms for edge delivery and app backends.
Guiding principles¶
- Free tier first. Every service starts on a free or near-free tier. No paid infrastructure before there is revenue or grant funding to cover it.
- AWS as growth path. AWS free tier covers early experimentation; nonprofit credits unlock meaningful capacity once the 501(c)(3) is in place.
- Right tool per workload. Static sites, WebSocket servers, SSR apps, and serverless APIs each have a natural home.
- Open source preferred. Fly.io, Railway, and Cloudflare Pages all have open pricing, no vendor lock-in, and CLI-first workflows compatible with the BNI toolchain.
- Carbon and grid-resilience as design axes. Per the Sustainability directive, cloud-vs-edge is a carbon trade-off, not only a cost or privacy one.
Static sites — docs and landing pages¶
Docs host: Cloudflare Pages
The umbrella docs site deploys via Cloudflare Pages → bignerdidea.org (mkdocs build --strict on push to main), with most paths behind Cloudflare Access (email OTP) and the homepage open. GitHub Pages is no longer used for docs; its legacy workflow is retained only as a redirect stub. The table below reflects the broader multi-site plan as the other projects come online.
| Site | Host | Cost |
|---|---|---|
MkDocs docs sites (big-nerd-idea, mpowerup, rlivn, toasterchef) |
Cloudflare Pages | $0 |
bignerdidea.com / bignerdidea.org entity landing pages |
Cloudflare Pages — free tier | $0 |
Cloudflare Pages: free (unlimited requests/bandwidth, 500 builds/month), 300+ global edge locations, git-integrated deploys with preview URLs. Apply for the free Cloudflare Pro plan once the 501(c)(3) is confirmed.
App backends — Node.js, WebSockets, SSR¶
Each BNI application has a server component requiring persistent or on-demand hosting.
| App | Component | Hosting |
|---|---|---|
| MPowerUP | WebSocket relay (Node.js) | Fly.io |
| RlivN | Fastify API | Railway |
| RlivN | Next.js admin portal | Vercel |
| ToasterChef | Colyseus multiplayer server (stateful WebSockets) | Fly.io |
- Fly.io — WebSocket-native, always-on free tier (3 shared 256MB VMs); right for MPowerUP relay and ToasterChef Colyseus. ~$5–10/mo per service when outgrown.
- Vercel — SSR/API routes out of the box for the RlivN admin portal; free hobby tier (100GB bandwidth/mo).
- Railway — Fastify API for RlivN; $5 credit/mo free tier, Postgres included.
AWS path¶
AWS is the preferred provider for heavier infrastructure; free tier provides meaningful runway before any cost.
| Service | Free allowance | BNI use case |
|---|---|---|
| EC2 t3.micro | 750 hrs/month — 12 months | Single box for relay + Colyseus under PM2 |
| S3 | 5GB storage — always free | Static assets, build artifacts, backups |
| CloudFront | 1TB transfer/month — always free | CDN in front of S3 or EC2 |
| Lambda | 1M requests/month — always free | Serverless RlivN API endpoints |
| Amplify Hosting | 5GB storage, 15GB bandwidth | Next.js SSR with CI/CD |
| App Runner | Pay-per-use (~$0.007/vCPU-hour) | Containerised Node.js, scales to zero |
12-month clock
The EC2 free tier runs for 12 months from account creation. After that, a t3.micro is ~$8/month. Plan the transition before the clock expires.
Monthly cost at Phase 0–2¶
| Service | Cost |
|---|---|
| Docs sites (4x) | $0 |
| Entity landing pages (2x) | $0 |
| Fly.io (MPowerUP relay + Colyseus) | $0 |
| Vercel (RlivN Next.js) | $0 |
| Railway (RlivN Fastify API) | ~$0 (within $5 credit) |
| AWS S3 + CloudFront | $0 (within free tier) |
| Total | $0–5 / month |
Upgrade path¶
| Trigger | Action | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|
| Fly.io VM memory pressure | Upgrade to shared-cpu-1x 512MB | ~$5–10/mo per service |
| Railway credit exhausted | Starter plan | $5/mo |
| EC2 free tier expires | t3.small reserved instance | ~$12/mo |
| Traffic growth on docs/landing | Cloudflare Pro (or nonprofit free) | $0–20/mo |
| 3+ backend services | Consolidate onto AWS ECS Fargate | Pay per use |
Hybrid AI inference (cloud + edge)¶
The hybrid online/offline pattern is critical to BNI's agentic AI access mission. The design pairs cloud inference (Claude API) with edge / offline inference (Ollama, local models) so products degrade gracefully under unreliable connectivity — used by MPowerUP Guardian AI and rlivn.
Section in progress
Detailed hybrid-inference architecture is still being written. Planned coverage: the cloud (Claude API) / edge (Ollama, local models) split for agentic services; the cost model for who pays for agent calls when the participant cannot (the open question in the Agentic AI Access Thesis, Gap 4); and privacy-preserving edge / P2P infrastructure (MPowerUP's libp2p WebRTC; future Guardian AI integration).
Nonprofit credits — unlock at the determination letter¶
Once BNI Foundation receives its 501(c)(3) determination letter (see Entities & Formation), apply immediately:
| Program | Value | Action |
|---|---|---|
| AWS for Nonprofits | Up to $5,000 in credits | aws.amazon.com/nonprofits |
| Google Cloud for Nonprofits | $10,000+ in credits | Google for Nonprofits |
| Cloudflare for Teams (nonprofit) | Free Pro plan | cloudflare.com/galileo |
| GitHub for Nonprofits | Free Teams plan | Convert existing paid plan |
| MongoDB Atlas for Nonprofits | Free M10 cluster | mongodb.com/nonprofit |
AWS nonprofit credits alone are expected to cover BNI's infrastructure cost for 1–2 years at early-stage usage.