06 — Deployment

Purpose: Condensed infrastructure reference for LLMs working on deployment, CI/CD, or ops tasks. For full setup details (VPS provisioning, Forgejo configuration, backup scripts), see the human-readable DEPLOYMENT.md. Last updated: 2026-05-15 Depends on: 00-project-overview.md

Infrastructure Overview

Internet
     ↓
Caddy (Docker container, ports 80/443)
     ├── lilastudy.com       → web container (nginx:alpine, static files)
     ├── api.lilastudy.com   → api container (Express, port 3000)
     └── git.lilastudy.com   → forgejo container (git + registry, port 3000)

SSH (port 2222) → forgejo container (git push/pull)

VPS: Hetzner, Debian 13, ARM64 (aarch64), 4GB RAM
Domain: lilastudy.com, wildcard *.lilastudy.com configured
Only Caddy faces the internet. All other services communicate over internal Docker network.

Docker Compose Stack

Services on shared lila-network:

Service	Image	Ports (internal)	Notes
caddy	caddy:alpine	80, 443	Only container with published ports
api	`git.lilastudy.com/forgejo-lila/lila-api:latest`	3000	Multi-stage Dockerfile, runs migrations on startup
web	`git.lilastudy.com/forgejo-lila/lila-web:latest`	80	nginx:alpine, SPA fallback via try_files
database	postgres:16	5432	Named volume `lila-db` for persistence
forgejo	forgejo:...	3000, 2222	Git + container registry, SSH on 2222

No ports exposed on internal services. Only Caddy (80/443) and Forgejo SSH (2222) are public.

Build & Deploy Flow

Dev laptop: git push to main
     ↓
Forgejo Actions triggers (runner on VPS)
     ↓
Build API image (target: runner)
Build Web image (target: production, VITE_API_URL baked in)
     ↓
Push both to git.lilastudy.com registry
     ↓
SSH into VPS, docker compose pull, restart containers
     ↓
API container runs migrations on startup (migrate.js before server.js)
     ↓
App updated (~2–5 min total)

Cross-compilation: Images built natively on ARM64 VPS (no QEMU). Dev laptop used for initial pushes before CI/CD was set up.

Environment-Driven Config

Same code runs in dev and production. Environment variables control behavior:

Variable	Dev	Production
`DATABASE_URL`	`postgres://...@localhost:5432/lila`	`postgres://...@database:5432/lila`
`BETTER_AUTH_URL`	`http://localhost:3000`	`https://api.lilastudy.com`
`CORS_ORIGIN`	`http://localhost:5173`	`https://lilastudy.com`
`COOKIE_DOMAIN`	undefined	`.lilastudy.com`
`VITE_API_URL`	`http://localhost:3000`	`https://api.lilastudy.com` (baked at build time)

Note: VITE_API_URL is baked into the frontend at Docker build time via --build-arg. It cannot be changed at runtime.

Database

Migrations

Drizzle migrations run automatically on API container startup. The Dockerfile entrypoint:

CMD ["node", "dist/src/migrate.js", "&&", "node", "dist/src/server.js"]

Deploy order enforced automatically: migrations before server starts.

Backups

Daily cron job at 3:00 AM: pg_dump → compressed SQL → ~/backups/
7-day retention on VPS
Dev laptop auto-syncs new backups on login via rsync
Offsite storage: Planned (Hetzner Object Storage or S3-compatible)

Seeding

Idempotent (onConflictDoNothing). Safe to re-run for adding new languages without affecting existing data or user tables.

Auth & OAuth

Better Auth embedded in Express API. No separate auth service.

Social providers:

Google OAuth — consent screen in testing mode (100 user cap). Must publish before reaching 80 users.
GitHub OAuth — configured for both dev and production redirect URIs

Cross-subdomain cookies: COOKIE_DOMAIN=.lilastudy.com (leading dot) makes auth cookie valid across all subdomains.

Known Issues & Limitations

Issue	Impact	Status
lila-web has no healthcheck	Vite dev server has no health endpoint; `depends_on` uses API healthcheck as proxy	Acceptable for dev
Valkey memory overcommit warning	Harmless in dev. Fix before production: `vm.overcommit_memory = 1`	Documented
No centralized monitoring/logging	No uptime alerts or log aggregation on VPS	Planned (BACKLOG.md)
Backups only on VPS + dev laptop	No offsite protection against VPS failure	Planned (BACKLOG.md)
Google OAuth in testing mode	100 user cap	Must publish before 80 users

Key Files

File	Purpose
`docker-compose.yml` (root)	Local dev stack
`docker-compose.yml` (VPS)	Production stack
`apps/api/Dockerfile`	Multi-stage: deps → dev → builder → runner
`apps/web/Dockerfile`	Multi-stage: deps → dev → builder → production (nginx)
`apps/web/nginx.conf`	SPA fallback routing
`Caddyfile`	Reverse proxy routing, automatic HTTPS
`.forgejo/workflows/deploy.yml`	CI/CD pipeline
`apps/api/src/migrate.ts`	Drizzle migration runner

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