Outpost isn't one big shared network like Discord — each server is its own independent community, running on its own infrastructure, with its own accounts. Here's how joining actually works, from both sides.
Someone gives you an invite link or an instance address (find one in the server directory). Open it in the web client or paste the address into the desktop app's server list — the desktop app keeps a bookmark list, so you can belong to multiple Outpost communities at once and switch between them, the same way you'd bookmark multiple Slack workspaces.
Depending on how the server owner configured it, registration is either open (anyone with the link can create an account) or invite-gated (you need a specific invite code, which may be single-use or reusable depending on what was generated).
A freshly deployed Outpost instance has no accounts at all until someone enters its one-time claim code — the server prints this to its own startup log, not to the web UI, specifically so there's no race to become the first (and automatically owner-privileged) user on a server exposed to the internet before anyone's watching it. Whoever has server access retrieves the code and enters it in the "Claim This Server" prompt the client shows on a fresh instance. See the self-hosting guide if you're standing up the server yourself.
Your Outpost login is scoped to that one instance — there's no cross-server identity the way a Discord account works across every server you're in. If you're active in multiple Outpost communities, you'll have a separate account (and can set a separate avatar/display name) on each one.
