What happened
The README calls docs.freeshard.net "the overall documentation of the project". A self-hoster went there for install instructions and found none.
The docs site has Overview, Developer Docs, Blog and User Guides. The Developer Docs are about writing apps for a shard, not about running one. There is no install page, no self-hosting page, no prerequisites page.
So the only install instructions in existence are in the GitHub README — which the marketing site does not link to either (see the companion issue on landing-page).
Why it matters
Two independent passes reached this finding: a ground-truth read of the funnel in August 2026, and now an actual install attempt. It is the difference between "self-hosting is documented" and "self-hosting is documented if you already know where to look".
Suggested fix
A self-hosting section on the docs site. It does not have to duplicate the README — a page that states the prerequisites and links to the README would already fix the discovery problem, and gives the prerequisites somewhere to live (they currently live nowhere; see the companion issue on freeshard).
Found by a synthetic self-hosting run — an AI agent following the documented install as a first-time self-hoster with a home server. Run id 2026-08-09T22-00-00-tech. Not a report from a real user. Full report: freeshard/curious-user-agents/runs/2026-08-09-tech-selfhost.md in the knowledge vault.
What happened
The README calls
docs.freeshard.net"the overall documentation of the project". A self-hoster went there for install instructions and found none.The docs site has Overview, Developer Docs, Blog and User Guides. The Developer Docs are about writing apps for a shard, not about running one. There is no install page, no self-hosting page, no prerequisites page.
So the only install instructions in existence are in the GitHub README — which the marketing site does not link to either (see the companion issue on
landing-page).Why it matters
Two independent passes reached this finding: a ground-truth read of the funnel in August 2026, and now an actual install attempt. It is the difference between "self-hosting is documented" and "self-hosting is documented if you already know where to look".
Suggested fix
A self-hosting section on the docs site. It does not have to duplicate the README — a page that states the prerequisites and links to the README would already fix the discovery problem, and gives the prerequisites somewhere to live (they currently live nowhere; see the companion issue on
freeshard).Found by a synthetic self-hosting run — an AI agent following the documented install as a first-time self-hoster with a home server. Run id
2026-08-09T22-00-00-tech. Not a report from a real user. Full report:freeshard/curious-user-agents/runs/2026-08-09-tech-selfhost.mdin the knowledge vault.