Your First Deploy
Sign in to the dashboard and deploy your first application, explained click by click.
Better-PaaS is installed and running. Let's put an app online.
Step 1 — Sign in
Open the dashboard in your browser:
- Local install:
http://localhost:3000 - Remote server:
http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:3000
You'll see a sign-in screen asking for your admin token. Paste the token the installer gave you and continue.
Where's my token again?
Run this on your server to print it:
cd ~/better-paas/backend && ./server tokenStep 2 — Start a new deploy
From the main dashboard, click Deploy a service. You'll be asked for a few things:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Git repository | The URL of your repo, e.g. https://github.com/you/my-app. |
| Branch | The branch to deploy, usually main. |
| Name | A friendly name for the app (optional — one is suggested). |
Deploying a private repository
If your repo is private, Better-PaaS needs permission to clone it. Add a Git access token (a personal access token from GitHub/GitLab) when prompted, or save one ahead of time under Settings → Git. Tokens are encrypted at rest.
Step 3 — Watch it build
Click Deploy. The app status moves through a few stages:
flowchart LR
A[Building] --> B[Running]
A --> C[Failed]- Building — Nixpacks is detecting your stack and compiling your code. Build logs stream live; watch them to spot any errors.
- Running — success! Your container is up and serving traffic.
- Failed — something went wrong during the build. Read the logs to see what, fix it, and redeploy.
What is Nixpacks doing?
Nixpacks looks at your project files — package.json, requirements.txt,
go.mod, and so on — to automatically detect the language and build commands.
For most common stacks you don't need a Dockerfile at all.
Step 4 — Open your live app
Once the status is Running, the app gets an automatic URL:
http://<app-id>.<your-server-ip>.sslip.ioClick it in the dashboard to open your app in a new tab. That's a real, internet-reachable URL — no DNS configuration required to get going.
Step 5 — Make a change and redeploy
Change some code, push it, and redeploy to see the loop in action:
- Click Redeploy on the app to rebuild from the latest commit, or
- Set up auto-deploy on git push so every push redeploys automatically.
New deploys are zero-downtime: the new version is built and health-checked on a fresh port before traffic switches over, and the old container is only retired once the new one is healthy.