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  Deploy tool by Abtz Labs

Atomic zero-downtime deployments to bare VPS (Virtual Private Server) over SSH.

• No containers.
• No agents.
• No orchestration layers.
• Works out-of-the-box

Just disciplined releases.

Philosophy

Bare Deploy is built for developers who:

• Deploy static websites, Node.js or PHP apps directly to VPS instances
• Want atomic releases with instant rollback
• Prefer SSH over platform abstraction
• Value operational clarity over orchestration complexity

Inspired by the simplicity of Kamal, but designed for host-native deployments.

Features

• Atomic symlink-based releases
• Zero-downtime cutovers
• Parallel multi-server deploy
• Per-server configuration (different distDirs for different servers)
• SSH key authentication (no password prompts)
• Configurable pre & post hooks
• Automatic version bump
• Health check validation
• Lock-file to prevent concurrent deploys
• Dry-run mode
• Structured colored logs
• Optional JSON logging
• Rollback support
• Release pruning
• Support for static sites with Let's Encrypt preservation
• Automatic ignore of files in .gitignore (except the build output directory)

How to Install

npm install -g bare-deploy

Quick Start

In your project root, run the following command to generate the bare.config.json configuration file:

bare init

The files it creates looks like this 👇

{
  "servers": [
    {
      "host": "your-server.com",
      "user": "deploy",
      "port": 22,
      "identityFile": "~/.ssh/id_rsa",
      "distDir": "./dist",
      "deployTo": "/var/www/app",
      "webroot": "",
      "include": [],
      "ignore": [".git/*"],
      "preScripts": [],
      "postScripts": [],
      "startScript": "pm2 restart --env production --update-env"
    }
  ],
  "keepReleases": 5,
  "include": [],
  "ignore": [".git/*"],
  "healthCheck": {
    "url": "http://localhost:3000/health",
    "timeout": 15
  }
}

[!NOTE] Server-specific options (distDir, deployTo, webroot, include, ignore, preScripts, postScripts, startScript) allow deploying different parts of your project to different servers.

[!NOTE] When running bare init:

• If package.json doesn't exist, it's created with version 0.1.0
• If .gitignore doesn't exist, it's created with bare.config.json
• If .gitignore exists but doesn't contain bare.config.json, the entry is added automatically

Configuration Options

Server-Specific Options

Each server in the servers array can have its own configuration:

{
  "servers": [
    {
      "host": "server.com",
      "user": "deploy",
      "port": 22,
      "identityFile": "~/.ssh/id_rsa",
      "distDir": "./dist",
      "deployTo": "/var/www/app",
      "webroot": "/var/www/app/public_html",
      "preScripts": [],
      "postScripts": [],
      "startScript": "pm2 restart --env production --update-env"
    }

    // ...
  ]
}

| Option | Required | Default | Description | | ----------------------- | -------- | ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | servers[].distDir | Yes | "./dist" | Directory where the content to package for deployment lives. | | servers[].deployTo | Yes | | Base path on the server where deployments are stored. Bare Deploy creates a releases/ subfolder with timestamped versions. | | servers[].webroot | No | Empty | Path to the web server's document root. On first deploy, backs up existing webroot to {webroot}.bak and creates a symlink. Automatically copies .well-known/ (Let's Encrypt) from the previous deployment. | | servers[].preScripts | No | [] | Array of commands to run locally before building the deployment package. | | servers[].postScripts | No | [] | Array of commands to run on the server after deployment but before switching the symlink. | | servers[].startScript | No | Empty | Command to run after symlink switch. Useful for process managers like PM2. | | servers[].include | No | Empty | Array of glob patterns to include in the deployment package. When specified, only matching files are packaged. Falls back to global include if not set. Add ".*" to include hidden files like .env.production. | | servers[].ignore | No | [] | Array of glob patterns to exclude from the deployment package. Applied after include patterns. Falls back to global ignore if not set. |

Global Options

| Option | Required | Default | Description | | --------------------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | include | No | [] | Array of glob patterns to include in the deployment package. Used as fallback when not defined per-server. | | ignore | No | [".git/*"] | Array of glob patterns to exclude from the deployment package. Used as fallback when not defined per-server. | | keepReleases | No | 5 | Number of releases to keep on the server as history. | | healthCheck | No | {} | Runs after all deploy steps to validate the deployment. If it fails, the deploy is automatically rolled back. Accepts url (URL to check) and timeout (seconds to wait, default 15). | | healthCheck.url | Empty | The URL to check after deployment. | | healthCheck.timeout | 15 | Seconds to wait for the health check to succeed. |

How to Deploy

bare deploy [options]

Options:

  --dry-run         Simulate execution
  --json            JSON logging
  --verbose         Show detailed operation info
  --sequential      Deploy server-by-server
  --patch           Bump patch version (default)
  --minor           Bump minor version
  --major           Bump major version

How It Works

• Bumps package.json version.
• Runs local pre-deploy scripts.
• Creates build artifact.
• Acquires lock.
• SCPs package to server.
• Extracts into timestamped release directory.
• Executes post-deploy scripts.
• Atomically switches current symlink.
• Optionally validates health endpoint.
• Releases lock.
• Rollback, when needed. Simply re-points the symlink.

How to Rollback

Re-points the current release to the given deploy ID. Also updates the previous symlink to point to the version before the rollback target.

bare rollback [id]

Symlinks

Bare Deploy manages three symlinks in your releases directory:

• current - Points to the active release
• previous - Points to the previous release (one version before current)

After each deploy:

• current → new release
• previous → previous release (what current was before)

After each rollback:

• current → rolled back release
• previous → version before the rolled back release, if any

How to List Releases

Lists all the existing deploy artifacts in the server.

bare list

How to Clean-up Old Releases

Purges historical deploy artifacts from the server while preserving the last X number of deploys, defined by keepReleases option.

bare cleanup

Why Not Containers?

Containers are powerful, but for many SaaS teams running on VPS, they introduce:

• Registry overhead
• Image lifecycle management
• Orchestration complexity
• Operational abstraction

Bare Deploy keeps the deployment model aligned with the host filesystem and process manager.

Bare Deploy is built and supported by Abtz Labs, the same people behind Abtz Analytics, KiwiCart, and others. It's opinionated, FREE, and open-source. Distributed under MIT license.

MIT © Abtz Labs