Ways to use Vabu OS

Pick the mode that matches what you already have. Modes combine per tenant and per product. For example, a tenant can use Vabu ID for login and Vabu's checkout for tickets, and take payment its own way for a stream.

Mode	You bring	Vabu OS provides	Example
A. Infrastructure API	Your app, users, payments and access rules	Service infrastructure through the API	A streaming platform
B. Own accounts	Your own login	Everything else, acting for the customers you name	A club app with existing logins
C. Own payments	Your payment stack	Access, streams and the rest. You tell Vabu who has paid.	A platform with its own payment provider
D. Whitelabel	Brand, domain and content	Login, checkout and the product APIs	A ticketing brand
E. Internal	Nothing	Everything	Vabu's own apps

A. Infrastructure API

Call the API from your server with a secret or restricted key. Your users stay yours: send external_id on any object, and read metadata and external_id. You do not need to create Vabu accounts for them.

B. Own accounts

You keep your login. Your server says who the customer is, in one of two ways:

• From your server, name the customer with your own id in the request.
• From a browser, send a customer token that your server signs, with a publishable key.

This works for Streams and Access today. Signing in to the other products with tokens from your own identity provider is on What's coming. See sign-in options.

C. Own payments

You collect the money your own way, and then tell Vabu who may use what. For Streams and Access that is one call after each payment:

POST /v1/access/entitlements
Idempotency-Key: grant-pay-8842

{ "customer": "user_42", "resource": { "type": "ls", "id": "ls_..." },
  "source": "tenant_grant", "source_ref": "pay-8842", "ends_at": "2026-11-02T18:30:05Z" }

No Vabu balance is created and there is no payout. See paid access.

For orders in Events and Commerce, Vabu collects the payment through its checkout today. Reporting payments you collected yourself, so that an order completes, is on What's coming.

D. Whitelabel

You supply a brand, a domain and content. Login is Vabu ID, payment is Vabu's checkout and the product APIs are the same ones everyone uses. Branding such as logo, colours and sender names is read from your tenant and organization. Your app calls the API and shows the result.

E. Internal

Vabu's own apps are tenants too. They use the same public API as you, with every product switched on.

Products

The products are Events, Fanbases, Commerce, Streams, Promoters, Messaging, Payments, Identity and Insights. See products for each one. Each tenant has Streams switched on separately: a Streams route that is off returns 403 with the code product_not_enabled. Keys carry product scopes.

What Vabu uses behind each product

You do not pick these yet. They are what Vabu runs for you, so you know what to expect.

Concern	What Vabu uses
Identity	Vabu ID, which also accepts Payd ID tokens
Payments	Payd checkout, with M-Pesa first
Streams	One video network that Vabu picks for your account. The provider field on each stream shows it.
Messaging	WhatsApp, SMS and email, sent by Vabu's own senders

Choosing a network for each stream is on What's coming.

Whatever the mode, Vabu sends an event for what happens, so webhooks work the same in every mode.