> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://pmxt.dev/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Server Management

> The SDK auto-spawns and manages pmxt-core when running self-hosted.

<Note>
  This page covers the **self-hosted** local server. If you're using a
  `pmxt_api_key`, you can ignore this page — the SDK talks to PMXT's
  [hosts](/authentication#hosts) directly and never spawns a local
  process. See [Hosted trading](/concepts/hosted-trading).
</Note>

When you create an exchange instance without a hosted API key, the SDK
spawns a local `pmxt-core` server, waits for it to become healthy, and
routes every request through it. You rarely need to touch the server
lifecycle yourself.

For setup, see [Self-hosted](/guides/self-hosted). For the full server
lifecycle API (`start`, `stop`, `restart`, `status`, `health`, `logs`)
and environment variables, see the
[pmxt GitHub README](https://github.com/pmxt-dev/pmxt).