quick-start.md

Quick Start

Deploy your first app in 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

• ShipNode installed on your local machine
• SSH access to your server
• A Node.js project (backend or frontend)

Step 1: Initialize

Navigate to your project and run:

cd /path/to/your/project
shipnode init

The interactive wizard will:

• Detect your framework (Express, NestJS, React, etc.)
• Ask for your server details
• Create shipnode.conf with your settings

Example session:

→ Detected framework: Express
→ SSH user: root
→ SSH host: 203.0.113.10
→ PM2 process name: myapp
→ Application port: 3000
→ Domain (optional): api.myapp.com

Step 2: Setup Server (First Time Only)

Install Node.js, PM2, and Caddy on your server:

shipnode setup

This installs:

• Node.js - LTS version via NodeSource
• PM2 - Process manager with auto-restart
• Caddy - Web server with automatic HTTPS

Step 3: Deploy

shipnode deploy

ShipNode will:

• Sync your code to the server
• Install dependencies
• Build (if needed)
• Switch to the new release atomically
• Run a health check
• Enable HTTPS via Caddy/Let's Encrypt

Step 4: Check Status

shipnode status

See your app's status, uptime, CPU, memory, and current release.

Step 5: Done!

Your app is live at https://your-domain.com (or http://ip:port if no domain).

What's Next?

• Deploy a Backend - Express, NestJS, etc.
• Deploy a Frontend - React, Vue, Svelte
• Zero-Downtime - How atomic deployments work
• Rollbacks - Revert if something goes wrong