Deploying from the CLI

The tapit CLI lets you build Docker images and deploy them to your Tapitalee app directly from your terminal or CI environment.

For a full command reference, see Reference → Deployments and Reference → Releases.

Prerequisites

Before you can deploy, you’ll need:

• tapit installed and authenticated — see app.tapitalee.com/dashboard/cli
• Docker — install Docker Desktop on Mac/Windows, or Docker Engine on Linux
• pack (only if you have no Dockerfile) — install from buildpacks.io
• A Tapitalee app — created via the CLI or web UI, and either configured in a tapit.toml file, specified with -a appName, or set via the TAPIT_APP environment variable

For details on how images are built (Dockerfile vs buildpacks), see Build Process.

The simplest deploy

If you just want to build your current code and deploy it:

tapit image deploy

That’s it. This builds your Docker image, pushes it to your app’s private container registry, and triggers a deployment — all in one step. Tapitalee auto-detects the version tag from your git repository.

Build now, deploy later

Sometimes you want to separate the build step from the deployment — for example, to run tests between them, or to deploy the same image to multiple environments.

Step 1: Build and push the image

tapit image build tag=v1.2.3

Step 2: Deploy when you’re ready

tapit create deploy docker_tag=v1.2.3-abc123

The docker_tag is the unique identifier that links your build to its deployment. It’s printed after a successful build, or you can set it yourself.

Waiting for the deployment to finish

By default, create deploy returns immediately after triggering the deployment. If you’re in a CI script and need to know whether it succeeded:

tapit create deploy docker_tag=v1.2.3-abc123 --wait

Deploying a specific process

If your app has multiple processes (e.g. web, worker, scheduler) and you only want to deploy one of them:

tapit create deploy docker_tag=v1.2.3-abc123 process=worker

By default, all processes are deployed independently. If one fails, it rolls back automatically while the others continue. See Reference → Deployments for details.

Creating a release record

Releases let you attach metadata to a build — like the git commit, tag, diff URL, or release notes. On enterprise plans, you can require releases to be approved before they can be deployed.

tapit create release docker_tag=v1.2.3-abc123 git_tag=v1.2.3 diff_url=https://github.com/org/repo/pull/42

See Reference → Releases for the full list of options, including how to attach release notes and manage approvals.

Third-party (pre-built) images

If you want to run an external Docker image instead of building your own, you can set the image field on a process directly. This is useful for running third-party services like databases, proxies, or any pre-built container.

tapit set process name=nginx image=nginx:latest

When you set a custom image, the process always runs that exact image rather than one built during deployment. Any image can be used, including public images from Docker Hub or other registries.

To deploy (or refresh) a process using a pre-built image, trigger a deployment via the web UI or CLI:

tapit create deploy

Since no docker_tag is specified, Tapitalee tells AWS ECS to update the deployment with the same image reference. This causes ECS to pull the latest version of the image (if using a mutable tag like latest) and restart the containers.

To revert a process back to using your app’s built images, clear the image field:

tapit set process name=nginx image=

See Reference → Processes for all process configuration options.

Checking deployment status

tapit show deploy

Past deployments are also listed under Event History → Deployments in the web UI, or via:

tapit list deploys
tapit list builds