Deku

_{deku: 9MB, dekud: 16MB, dashboard bundle: 848 KB}

Deku is a lightweight self-hosted PaaS for deploying and operating applications on your own server.

It combines:

• A Rust CLI: deku
• A Rust daemon: dekud
• Docker for app and service containers
• Angie for routing and TLS
• A built-in dashboard served directly by the daemon

The current workflow is intentionally practical:

• Install Deku on a Linux server
• Create an app
• Start from a local starter template when you want a ready-made app skeleton
• Deploy from a source directory or image
• Manage config, domains, TLS, scale, logs, services, storage, networks, and cron from the CLI or dashboard

What You Can Do With Deku

• App lifecycle: create apps, deploy from source archives or images, inspect deployment history, and roll back when needed
• Starter templates: begin from local framework templates adapted for Deku deploys
• Runtime management: manage config vars, domains, port mappings, TLS, process scale, logs, networks, storage mounts, and cron entries
• Built-in services: provision Postgres, Redis, and MySQL services and link them to apps
• Operational visibility: use the dashboard for app, routing, service, object-store, SSH-key, and plugin workflows
• CLI-first workflows: use deku from the terminal for setup, deploys, inspection, and automation-friendly operations

Quick Start

Requirements:

• Linux server with apt-get available
• Ubuntu 22.04+ or Debian 11+
• Docker Engine 24+
• 512 MB RAM minimum
• Root access

Install on the server:

curl -fsSL https://get-deku.vercel.app/install.sh | sudo bash

Uninstall guidance, including deku uninstall, lives in docs/src/content/docs/installation.md.

After install:

deku dashboard
deku apps create my-app
deku deploy run my-app --path /absolute/path/to/app

New installs bind Deku's optional SSH deploy server to port 2222 by default so the API/dashboard can coexist with a standard host sshd on port 22.

Useful follow-up commands:

deku apps info my-app
deku deploy list my-app
deku logs my-app -n 100
deku ps list my-app
deku checks run my-app
deku checks routing my-app

Dashboard

The dashboard is served by dekud itself.

Run:

deku dashboard

That prints:

• The server-reachable dashboard URL
• The local loopback dashboard URL for on-host access
• The config path
• The token status
• SSH tunnel and firewall guidance for remote access
• The reset-token command if you need a replacement token

The initial token is shown once during deku setup or deku dashboard reset-token.

The dashboard and authenticated HTTP API listen on TCP port 2810 by default. If your browser is on another machine, either use an SSH tunnel or allow 2810/tcp through your firewall.

Managed Services

Deku currently includes first-party built-in service workflows for:

• Postgres
• Redis
• MySQL

These services can be created, linked to apps, inspected, and tailed from the CLI and dashboard.

Postgres and Redis also support persisted backup workflows through the configured object store.

Deploy Model

Deku supports:

• Image deploys via deku deploy run <app> --image <ref>
• Source deploys via deku deploy run <app> --path <dir>
• SSH git push deploys as a supported secondary path

Starter templates live under templates/ in this repository. They are adapted for Deku's dockerfile and nixpacks deploy paths.

Rollout behavior is controlled by deku.toml:

[deploy]
healthcheck = "/health"
port = 3000
wait = 5
timeout = 30
attempts = 5
retire = 60

Those settings are applied by the live deploy pipeline, not just stored as metadata.

Repository Layout

• crates/deku: CLI
• crates/dekud: daemon and HTTP API
• crates/deku-core: shared types and auth utilities
• dashboard/: Astro + React dashboard
• docs/: Starlight documentation site
• plugins/: first-party plugin crates plus dynamic plugin runtime support
• scripts/: installer, release packaging, and smoke tests
• templates/: local starter app catalog for common framework deploys

Development

Common verification commands:

cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test --all

Full local CI gate:

./scripts/ci-local.sh

Frontend and docs:

cd dashboard && bun install --frozen-lockfile
cd dashboard && bun run lint
cd dashboard && bun run check
cd dashboard && bun run build
cd docs && bun install --frozen-lockfile
cd docs && bun run check
cd docs && bun run build

The dashboard build output lives in dashboard/dist. Packaged installs consume that output through the release deku-dashboard.tar.gz artifact rather than embedding a compiled dashboard snapshot into dekud.

License

MIT