5-minute quickstart

On this page, you will create a Tiger Cloud service, connect to it, create your first hypertable, and run a query. By the end you'll have a working time-series table and see query results, all in under 5 minutes.

For a more extensive lesson on what hypertables are and why they matter, see Your first hypertable.

Prerequisites for this tutorial

To follow these steps, you'll need:

• A Tiger Cloud account

Tips

Prefer the terminal? You can also create and manage services with Tiger CLI.

Step 1: Create a service

1. Create a service

   In Tiger Console, click New service and follow the wizard to configure your service.

2. Wait for the service to be ready

   Click Create service. The service is ready in a few seconds.

3. Under Download your database config, click Download the config

   Store the file somewhere safe, you'll need the connection string to connect to your service. This is the only time you can access your service's password.

For more detail, see Create a Tiger Cloud service.

Step 2: Connect to your service

1. Pick one way to run SQL

   Tiger Console

   1. In Tiger Console, select your service.
   2. Click SQL Editor at the bottom. You're connected as soon as you see the query panel.

   psql

   1. Install psql.

   2. Run the following command in the terminal, using the connection string from the config file you downloaded:

      psql "<your-service-url>"

2. Confirm you're connected

   Run this:

   SELECT CURRENT_DATE;

   You should see today's date. If you do, you're ready for the next step.

Step 3: Create your first hypertable and run a query

We'll create a small hypertable (a table optimized for time-series data), insert a few rows, and query them. You'll use standard SQL; the database handles partitioning automatically.

1. Create the hypertable

   Run this in Tiger Console or your SQL client:

   CREATE TABLE conditions (
      time        TIMESTAMPTZ       NOT NULL,
      location    TEXT              NOT NULL,
      device      TEXT              NOT NULL,
      temperature DOUBLE PRECISION  NULL,
      humidity    DOUBLE PRECISION  NULL
   ) WITH (
      tsdb.hypertable,
      tsdb.segmentby = 'device',
      tsdb.orderby = 'time DESC'
   );

   You should see a confirmation that the table was created. The tsdb.hypertable option makes this a hypertable partitioned by time.

2. Insert sample data

   INSERT INTO conditions (time, location, device, temperature, humidity)
   VALUES
      (NOW() - INTERVAL '2 hours', 'office', 'sensor-1', 22.1, 45.0),
      (NOW() - INTERVAL '1 hour',  'office', 'sensor-1', 22.3, 44.8),
      (NOW(),                      'office', 'sensor-1', 22.2, 45.1);

3. Query the data

   SELECT * FROM conditions ORDER BY time DESC;

   You should see your three rows with the most recent first. You've just created a hypertable, inserted time-series data, and queried it, all with standard SQL.

Tips

What just happened? The table is partitioned by time into chunks behind the scenes. You didn't have to manage chunks; you just used the table. For the full picture, see Your first hypertable.

Next steps

• Integrate Tiger Cloud with your AI agent: Set up Tiger MCP and manage your service from Claude, Cursor, and other AI agents.
• Your first hypertable: Go deeper with hypertables, chunks, and time-series queries.
• Write and query data: Learn how to write, query, and manage your time-series data.
• Deploy: Configure, secure, and manage your Tiger Cloud deployment.