Deployment

Deployment

Blixt includes CLI tooling to generate production-ready Docker files and an App builder option to run migrations on startup.

Generating Docker files

blixt generate docker

This detects your project configuration and creates three files:

  • Dockerfile — multi-stage build with cargo-chef for dependency caching
  • docker-compose.yml — app, PostgreSQL 17, and optional Redis 7
  • .dockerignore — excludes target/, .git/, .env, etc.

Redis is auto-detected if your Cargo.toml includes features = ["redis"] for the blixt dependency, or if .env.example contains REDIS_URL.

Build and run

docker compose up -d          # or: podman compose up -d

The compose file includes health checks on all services. The app container waits for Postgres (and Redis if present) to be healthy before starting.

What the Dockerfile does

Stage 1: chef     — installs cargo-chef on rust:1-slim
Stage 2: planner  — extracts dependency recipe (cargo chef prepare)
Stage 3: builder  — compiles deps from recipe, compiles app, builds Tailwind
Stage 4: runtime  — debian:bookworm-slim with binary, static files, migrations

The cargo-chef pattern caches dependency compilation between builds. Only your application code recompiles when source changes.

Auto-migrations on startup

For containerized deployments where the app manages its own schema, enable auto-migration:

App::new(config)
    .db(pool)
    .run_migrations()
    .router(router)
    .serve()
    .await

When .run_migrations() is set, serve() runs all pending migrations before binding the listener. This is opt-in — dev mode users typically run blixt db migrate separately.

Production build

blixt build

This compiles Tailwind CSS with --minify and runs cargo build --release. The output binary is at target/release/<your-app>.

Health check endpoints

Every Blixt app exposes two health endpoints (no middleware applied):

EndpointResponseUse
/_pingpong (200)Load balancer liveness probe
/_healthJSON with database status (200/503)Readiness probe

/_health checks database connectivity when a pool is configured via App::db(pool). Without a pool, it returns "database not configured".

Environment variables

Key variables for production:

VariableDefaultDescription
BLIXT_ENVdevelopmentSet to production to skip .env loading and enable JSON logs
HOST127.0.0.1Bind address (0.0.0.0 for containers)
PORT3000Listen port
DATABASE_URL—PostgreSQL connection string
JWT_SECRET—HMAC secret for token signing

The generated docker-compose.yml sets these automatically.

Security in production

When BLIXT_ENV=production:

  • .env files are not loaded — use real environment variables
  • Structured JSON logging is enabled
  • A warning is emitted if HOST is bound to 0.0.0.0
  • Security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, etc.) are applied on all responses
← Testing