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Deployment

Run Zander reliably in production with a process manager and a reverse proxy. This page covers PM2, nginx, and environment hardening.

Starting the Application​

Development​

npm run dev

Uses nodemon for automatic restarts on file changes.

Production​

npm run prod

Starts the application with node --experimental-modules --experimental-json-modules --experimental-specifier-resolution=node --max-old-space-size=512 app.js — a 512 MB heap cap, not --experimental-vm-modules. This command does not auto-restart on crash — use a process manager (see below).

Build Step​

Run the build step once before first launch and after each update:

npm run build

This installs dependencies, runs prisma migrate deploy, and generates the Prisma client.

Process Management​

For production deployments, run the app under a process manager to ensure it restarts automatically.

npm install -g pm2
pm2 start app.js --name zander-web --node-args="--experimental-modules --experimental-json-modules --experimental-specifier-resolution=node" --max-memory-restart 512M
pm2 save
pm2 startup

Heroku / Procfile​

The repository includes a Procfile for Heroku-style platforms:

web: node --experimental-modules --experimental-json-modules --experimental-specifier-resolution=node app.js

Reverse Proxy (nginx)​

Serve the app over HTTPS using nginx as a reverse proxy:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}

Update siteAddress in .env to the public HTTPS URL once the proxy is configured.

Environment Variables​

Ensure all required .env values are set before starting in production. In particular:

  • NODE_ENV=production — enables production-mode logging and error handling
  • sessionCookieSecret — must be a secure random string (32+ characters)
  • siteAddress — must be the public HTTPS URL
  • DATABASE_URL — must point to a reliable MySQL instance
warning

Never commit your .env file to version control. Use a secrets manager or environment injection provided by your hosting platform.

Updating​

  1. Pull the latest code.
  2. Run npm run build to apply any new migrations and regenerate the Prisma client.
  3. Restart the application (pm2 restart zander-web or equivalent).