> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/sdgm/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/sdgm/_mcp/server.

# Prerequisites

> What you need before deploying the Kumo Engine Platform, regardless of deployment path.

> **Prerelease documentation**
>
> This Kumo Studio information is prerelease and is not yet supported. Stay tuned for the Docker and Kubernetes releases.

These requirements apply to both the Helm and Docker deployment paths.
Satisfy them before following either path's setup guide.

## NGC access

Kumo container images are distributed through the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) private registry.
You need an NGC API key with access to the `Structured Data & Graph Models / kumo-3` organization.
Credentials are provided by your NVIDIA or Kumo contact.
There is no self-service sign-up path.

The NGC catalog is available at [catalog.ngc.nvidia.com](https://catalog.ngc.nvidia.com).
A public registry is coming soon and will cover both deployment paths.

Once you have your key, authenticate Docker against the registry:

```bash
docker login nvcr.io -u '$oauthtoken' -p <YOUR_NGC_API_KEY>
```

Single-quote `'$oauthtoken'` so your shell does not expand it.
This authentication is required for Docker Compose image pulls.
For Helm, you also use the same key to fetch the chart from NGC (refer to [Registry & Image Access](/kumo-engine/1.0.0/kumo-studio-guide-coming-soon/preliminary-documentation/installation/helm-kubernetes/registry-and-image-access)).

## Tenant identifier

For Docker Compose, set `CUSTOMER_ID` to a short, lowercase name that identifies your Kumo deployment.
For Helm, set `global.tenant` to the tenant name.
Helm uses this value in storage paths, pod labels, and the default Temporal namespace.
Example: `acme`.

## Image tag

All three Kumo images (`kumo-backend-cpu`, `kumo-backend-gpu`, `kumo-ui`) share a single image tag.
The tag is a 40-character git commit SHA - not `latest` or a semver alias.
Confirm the exact tag to use with your NVIDIA contact before starting either deployment path.