---
title: Prerequisites and access
description: What you need before running Human Plugin — the registry credentials, your access key, a dedicated PostgreSQL database and a private network path.
canonical: https://developer.unico.io/human-plugin/get-started/prerequisites
locale: en
generated_by: markdown-export
---

# Prerequisites and access

Everything to have in place before the first request.

## What Unico gives you

| Item | Used for |
| --- | --- |
| Registry credentials (username and token) | Pulling the Human Plugin image from Unico's registry. They only download the image |
| Access key | Connects your installation to Unico's network. It identifies your account. Get it by signing in to [dashboard.unico.app](https://dashboard.unico.app) |

Both are secrets, and they are different credentials: the registry credentials are used by Docker or Kubernetes to download the image, and the access key is used by Human Plugin while it runs. Keep both in your secret store.

The access key is **outbound only**. Callers of Human Plugin do not send it, and Human Plugin does not check any credential on incoming requests.

## What you provide

| You need | Why |
| --- | --- |
| A container runtime | Docker 24 or later, Docker Compose v2, or Kubernetes |
| A PostgreSQL 16 database dedicated to Human Plugin | Human Plugin keeps the processes and the intelligence in it. See the [hardware requirements](/human-plugin/self-hosting/overview#hardware-requirements). A managed service such as Amazon RDS or Google Cloud SQL works. The role must be able to create tables in that database |
| Outbound HTTPS from the container | To Unico's hosts. See [Networking and security](/human-plugin/self-hosting/networking-and-security) |
| A private path from your back-end | Human Plugin has no inbound authentication |

The database is yours: provisioning, network access, encryption, backups and retention. Unico never connects to it.

## Next

[Quickstart](/human-plugin/get-started/quickstart)