Deploy

Deploy Skill — Docker Compose Stack and Bootstrap

Usage

/deploy
/deploy --up

• /deploy — generate all deployment files without starting services.
• /deploy --up — generate files and immediately run bash init.sh to start the stack.

Prerequisites

The following must exist before running this skill:

• backend/ and/or frontend/ — source code with known runtimes and entry points.
• specs/design/deployment.md — deployment architecture decisions (DB engine, port assignments, service names).
• project-manifest.json — for service names, port config, and environment variable inventory.

If any of these are missing, stop and report what is absent.

Steps

Step 1 — Read Project Manifest

Read project-manifest.json. Extract:

• Service names and their roles (backend API, frontend SPA, worker, etc.)
• Port assignments for each service.
• Database engine and version.
• Any declared environment variable names.

Step 2 — Read Deployment Architecture

Read specs/design/deployment.md. Extract:

• Service dependencies and startup order.
• Health check endpoints for each service.
• Volume requirements (DB data, uploads, etc.).
• Any explicit constraints (network mode, resource limits).

Step 3 — Generate docker-compose.yml

Generate docker-compose.yml at the project root from the deployment template.

Requirements:

• Every service that another service depends on must use depends_on with a condition: service_healthy entry.
• Define named volumes for all persistent data (DB data directory, upload storage).
• No hardcoded passwords — all secrets come from environment variables.
• Each service must have a healthcheck block with a realistic test, interval, timeout, and retries.
• Use specific image tags (e.g., postgres:16-alpine), never latest.

Step 4 — Generate Dockerfiles

backend/Dockerfile

• Multi-stage build: builder stage installs dependencies, runtime stage copies only the built artefact.
• Run as non-root user.
• EXPOSE the port declared in the manifest.
• HEALTHCHECK instruction matching the health check endpoint.

frontend/Dockerfile (if frontend exists)

• Build stage: install deps, run build.
• Serve stage: NGINX or equivalent static server.
• EXPOSE the frontend port.

Step 5 — Generate .env.example

Generate .env.example at the project root.

Every environment variable referenced in docker-compose.yml or either Dockerfile must have an entry. Each entry must include a comment explaining what it is and what format it expects:

# Database connection string
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@db:5432/appdb

# JWT signing secret — generate with: openssl rand -hex 32
JWT_SECRET=change-me-in-production

No variable may appear in compose or Dockerfiles without a corresponding .env.example entry.

Step 6 — Generate init.sh

Generate init.sh at the project root from the init template.

The script must:

1. Check that Docker and Docker Compose are available.
2. Copy .env.example to .env if .env does not already exist.
3. Run docker compose build.
4. Run docker compose up -d.
5. Poll each service health check URL until it responds or a timeout is reached (30s per service).
6. Print a summary: which services are up, which URLs are accessible.

Make init.sh executable (chmod +x init.sh).

Step 7 — Phase Evaluation Gate

This gate runs BEFORE the stack is started — it exists to catch invalid compose syntax, port conflicts, and missing health checks before they become runtime failures.

First, validate syntax deterministically:

docker compose config

Fix any errors before spawning the evaluator.

Then spawn the evaluator agent (artifact mode) to validate deploy artifacts.

Agent invocation:

Spawn Agent with subagent_type="evaluator" and prompt:

• Phase: deploy
• Artifacts: docker-compose.yml, all Dockerfile* files, .env.example, init.sh
• Upstream: specs/design/architecture.md (if exists)
• Rubric: Read .claude/templates/phase-eval-rubrics.json, key "deploy"
• Iteration: 1 (increment on retry)
• Previous score: null (or previous iteration's weighted_average)
• Check: Every service in architecture.md has a compose entry. No port conflicts. Health checks defined. YAML syntax valid.
• Write result to specs/reviews/phase-deploy-eval.json

Ratchet loop (max 2 iterations):

1. If verdict is PASS — proceed to Step 8.
2. If verdict is FAIL — fix config issues based on findings. Re-run evaluator.
3. Ratchet rule: weighted_average must be >= previous iteration. Revert on regression.
4. After 2 iterations — proceed to Step 8 with findings attached as warnings, but do NOT run --up on an unresolved FAIL — report the failure instead.

Step 8 — If --up Flag

Only after the gate above has passed (or warnings were explicitly accepted), run:

bash init.sh

Report the output. If any service fails its health check, print the service logs and stop.

Output

Gotchas

• Missing depends_on with health conditions. Services that start before their dependencies are ready cause intermittent failures. Always use condition: service_healthy.
• No bind mount volumes. Named volumes persist across docker compose down. Bind mounts to host paths break in CI and on other machines.
• Hardcoded passwords. Never put credentials directly in docker-compose.yml. All secrets go in .env.
• Missing .env.example entries. New variables added to compose but not documented leave other developers with silent failures.
• latest image tags. Tags like postgres:latest break reproducibility. Pin to a specific version.
• Root user in containers. Run application processes as a non-root user to limit blast radius on compromise.