diff --git a/lib/commands/instance/index.ts b/lib/commands/instance/index.ts
index 5506b191..3cdc9e2f 100644
--- a/lib/commands/instance/index.ts
+++ b/lib/commands/instance/index.ts
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
  */
 
 import { flags } from '@oclif/command';
+import { IArg } from '@oclif/parser/lib/args';
 import Command from '../../command';
 import * as cf from '../../utils/common-flags';
 import { stripIndent } from '../../utils/lazy';
@@ -25,13 +26,23 @@ interface FlagsDef {
 	v13: boolean;
 }
 
+
 export default class InstanceCmd extends Command {
+	public static args: Array<IArg<any>> = [
+		{
+			name: 'provider',
+			description: 'the cloud provider',
+			required: true,
+		},
+	];
+
+
 	public static description = stripIndent`
 		Initialize a new cloud instance running balenaOS
 
 		A config.json must first be generated using the 'balena config generate' command
 		`;
-	public static examples = ['$ balena instance init'];
+	public static examples = ['$ balena instance init digitalocean'];
 
 	public static usage = 'instance [COMMAND]';
 
diff --git a/lib/commands/instance/init.ts b/lib/commands/instance/init.ts
index 72c2e8ce..d95e5344 100644
--- a/lib/commands/instance/init.ts
+++ b/lib/commands/instance/init.ts
@@ -65,6 +65,11 @@ export default class InstanceInitCmd extends Command {
 	public static usage = 'instance init';
 
 	public static args: Array<IArg<any>> = [
+		{
+			name: 'provider',
+			description: 'the cloud provider: do | digitalocean | aws | gcp',
+			required: true,
+		},
 		{
 			name: 'configFile',
 			description: 'the config.json file path',
@@ -92,7 +97,12 @@ export default class InstanceInitCmd extends Command {
 	public static authenticated = true;
 
 	public async run() {
-		const { args: params, flags: options } = this.parse<FlagsDef, { configFile: string }>(InstanceInitCmd);
+		const { args: params, flags: options } = this.parse<FlagsDef, { configFile: string, provider: string }>(InstanceInitCmd);
+		
+		if (!['do', 'digitalocean'].includes(params.provider)) {
+			console.error('Only DigitalOcean is supported as a provider, please use "do" or "digitalocean" as your provider positional argument.')
+			return
+		}
 
 		// Check if the config file exists
 		console.log('Reading config file')