> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.minimus.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Let's Get Started

> Step-by-step guide to signing up, pulling your first image, and deploying Minimus in your environment

Make the switch to Minimus images without breaking a sweat. The level of effort required to migrate depends on the application and environment, but in most cases it is extremely low or nearly effortless.

## **How to switch to Minimus images**

### **1. Sign up**

[Get in touch with our team](https://images.minimus.io/request-account) to request an account and set up an introductory meeting. It is our pleasure to introduce you to the platform and help you get set up.

### **2. Get to know Minimus**

Once you log into the Minimus console, you'll want to orient yourself with the UI and learn about the display of [Minimus image cards](/foundations/image-card) and [version information](/foundations/image-version).

If you have a team to onboard, you can [set up user management](/manage/users) and [SSO](/sso/saml) once you're ready.

### **3. Pull your first image and deploy a Helm chart**

You can pull any Minimus image from the registry using the `latest` and `latest-dev` tags. Feel free to give different images a try using their quick start guides or try replacing the Minimus image within your existing testing environments.

You can [authenticate to Minimus](/foundations/authentication) using a `docker login` command, Kubernetes Secret, or by using the Minimus token inline in a Helm install command.

Keep in mind that Minimus images are updated regularly so even within the span of a few days you will want to [avoid using cached images](/foundations/pull-policy).

Minimus provides many in-depth guides to help you learn how to optimize your apps using [multi-stage builds](/guides/golang), [AWS Lambda](/guides/aws-lambda-deployment), configure [databases with secure TLS](/advanced-guides/mongo-tls), and more.

### **4. Connect your registry and pipelines**

You'll want to check that you [meet the networking requirements](/manage/network). If you prefer to pull Minimus images through a third-party registry, you can set up syncing with [Google Artifact Registry](/manage/mirror-to-gcp-artifact-registry) or [JFrog Artifactory](/manage/sync-with-jfrog-artifactory). With a Minimus image subscription, you will also be able to [sync images to a self-hosted private registry](/manage/self-hosted-registry), even if it is air-gapped.

### **5. Create your first private image**

If you would like to customize a Minimus image by adding packages, configuration files, certificates, or environment variables, you can use Minimus [Creator](/advanced-tooling/image-creator) to build your own private image.

Minimus will maintain, update, and scan your private images just as if they were public images.

If you are migrating from Alpine, Debian, or other distro-based images, you can learn more about how to build a custom image off Static with only the packages of your choice. You can also see our recommendations for adjusting Dockerfiles in more complex scenarios by temporarily escalating privileges, using Python virtual environments (venv), etc. See [Going Distroless](/foundations/going-distroless)