Kamal Deploy

Deploy containerized apps to any server with Kamal — zero-downtime rollouts, no Kubernetes. Configures deploy.yml, wires accessories and secrets, and ships Rails or any web app to a VPS/cloud host as a self-hosted Heroku/Render alternative.

This skill guides Kamal (37signals' deploy tool): writing config/deploy.yml, configuring roles, accessories (databases, Redis), registries, healthchecks, and secrets, and running zero-downtime deploys to Hetzner/DigitalOcean/AWS. Use it to self-host containerized apps without Kubernetes.

When to use

Use when deploying containerized apps with Kamal — writing deploy.yml, configuring accessories and secrets, and running zero-downtime deploys to a VPS or cloud server.

Examples

Deploy to a VPS

Zero-downtime rollout

Write a Kamal deploy.yml to ship my Rails app to a Hetzner server with a Postgres accessory, healthchecks, and zero-downtime deploys

Add secrets and registry

Wire credentials

Configure Kamal to pull from GitHub Container Registry and inject database and Rails master key secrets from environment variables