Deployment

Express Forge provides production-ready configurations to help you ship your API with confidence.

🐳 Docker Deployment (Recommended)

The easiest way to deploy is using the provided multi-stage Dockerfile.

Build Image

docker build -t my-express-api .

Run Container

docker run -p 3000:3000 --env-file .env my-express-api

Why Multi-stage?

Our Dockerfile uses multi-stage builds to:

1. Reduce Image Size: The final image only contains the compiled JavaScript and production dependencies.
2. Security: Source code and build tools are not included in the final production image.

☁️ Cloud Platforms

Railway / Render / Fly.io

Most modern PaaS platforms will automatically detect the Dockerfile or the start script in package.json.

1. Connect your GitHub repository.
2. Configure your environment variables (copy from .env).
3. Set the build command to npm run build (if not using Docker).

   Note for Prisma users: The generated package.json includes a postinstall: "prisma generate" script, which ensures your Prisma client is generated automatically before the build step on most PaaS platforms.

4. Set the start command to npm start.

🛡️ Production Checklist

Before going live, ensure:

• [ ] Environment Variables: NODE_ENV is set to production.
• [ ] Database: Migrations have been run on the production database.
• [ ] Logging: Log level is set appropriately (e.g., info or error).
• [ ] Security: CORS is restricted to your frontend domain.
• [ ] Rate Limiting: Configured for your production traffic.