When you start the data store without specifying a follower node flag for the Dgraph process, this node serves as the leader node.
The leader node must be started first (before any of the follower nodes have been started).
Before starting the leader node, ensure that the Cluster Coordinator service is running on this node. Note the host name and port of your Cluster Coordinator service, so that you can specify them when starting the Dgraph as the leader node.
You configure one and only one leader node in a cluster. Therefore, if you want to start the Dgraph process as the leader, do not specify the --follower flag for it. The Dgraph process instance that is started without the --follower flag becomes the leader node. You also do not specify a name for the leader node.
To create the data store and start the Dgraph process as the leader node:
Now that you have started the leader node, you can add one or more follower nodes.