Setup Options
Choose the Rails Yield deployment model that fits your stack — Fully Managed, Third Party Hosted, or Intelligence API — and the permissions and trade-offs of each.
Rails Yield supports three deployment models. They differ in who runs the Lightning node, who runs the automation, and how much access Amboss has to your infrastructure. Pick by your operations posture, not by feature - all three earn the same yield.
Decision tree
Comparison
| Option | 1. Fully Managed | 2. Third Party Hosted | 3. Intelligence API |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs the node | Amboss (Voltage-hosted LND/Litd) | You | You |
| Who runs automation | Amboss | Amboss | You |
| Amboss → your node connection | Direct (Amboss-provisioned) | Inbound from Amboss to your node | None |
| Integration lift | Lowest | Medium (LND/Litd deployment + macaroon submission) | Highest (you build automation) |
| Best for | Treasuries and teams who want hands-off yield | Teams with existing Lightning infrastructure | Teams with sophisticated in-house automation |
| Key benefit | ✅ Completely hands-off | ✅ After node setup, almost hands-off | ✅ No external connectivity to your node |
| Key trade-off | ❌ Opinionated stack | ❌ DevOps requirements | ❌ Highest integration effort |
All three models are self-custodial. Channel keys stay on your node (or the Voltage-hosted node provisioned in your name).
Detailed pages
Fully Managed
Amboss runs everything. Fastest path to yield.
Third Party Hosted
Bring your own LND or Litd. Amboss automates liquidity.
Intelligence API
Insights-only. You run the node and the automation.
Node permissions for Rails
Fully Managed and Third Party Hosted setups both grant Amboss a scoped macaroon. The macaroon avoids spend-related permissions so the team retains full control over funds.
These permissions are intentionally scoped to limit operational access while enabling Amboss to perform essential functions on behalf of the user.
| Required? | Permission |
|---|---|
| ✅ | General view-only permissions |
| ✅ | Open and close channel permissions |
| ✅ | Set routing policy permissions |
| ✅ | Create invoice permissions |
| ❌ | Create on-chain address permissions |
| ❌ | Pay to invoice or on-chain spend |
The Intelligence API setup does not connect to your node and therefore requires no macaroon.
Onboarding
For Fully Managed, steps 1-3 are the dashboard "Create Earn Node" flow; for Third Party Hosted, step 3 is the node.connect mutation; for Intelligence API, you stop at step 1 and start querying.
Offboarding
See Withdraw for the API call and Node Lifecycle for the deactivation states.
Next steps
- Getting Started - end-to-end quickstart
- Integrate - full GraphQL walkthrough
- API Reference - field-level docs
Get Started
Dashboard-first quickstart for Rails Yield — deploy a node, fund it, activate, and start monitoring earnings via the GraphQL API in under an hour.
Fully Managed
Rails Yield with Amboss running the Lightning node and the automation — fastest path to deployed Bitcoin yield with no DevOps overhead.