Deployment Skill

Configure deployment settings, publish your project, and debug deployment issues.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• Configuring how the project should run in production
• The project is in a working state and ready for publishing
• The user explicitly asks to publish or deploy the project
• You've completed implementing a feature and verified it works
• Setting up deployment for different project types (websites, bots, scheduled jobs)
• The user reports their deployed application is not working correctly
• The user wants to see what errors are occurring in production
• The user needs to debug a runtime issue with their deployed app
• The user asks to check deployment or server logs

When NOT to Use

• Project has known errors or incomplete features
• You haven't validated that the project works
• The user is just testing or prototyping

Reference Documents

This skill has additional reference documents for specific deployment scenarios. Read them as needed:

• references/deployment-logs.md

  — How to fetch and analyze runtime deployment logs. Read this when the user's deployed app is misbehaving, the live site is down, or they want to check production logs.

Available Functions

verifyAndReplaceArtifactToml({ tempFilePath, artifactTomlPath })

Validate and replace an artifact's

artifact.toml

through a temp file (from the

artifacts

skill). To update deployment settings, copy the current

artifact.toml

to a temp file (e.g.

artifact.edit.toml

), edit the temp file, then call this callback with absolute paths. Do not edit

artifact.toml

directly. See the

artifacts

skill for full documentation, parameters, and usage rules.

suggestDeploy()

Prompt the user to click the Publish button after the app is ready. Only works in the main repl context — in task-agent/subrepl sessions this callback returns

success: false

. If you are in a task agent, skip this call and instead remind the user to publish from the main version after merging.

fetchDeploymentLogs({ afterTimestamp, beforeTimestamp, message, messageContext })

Fetch and analyze deployment logs. See

references/deployment-logs.md

for full documentation.

Deployment Targets

Choose the appropriate deployment target based on your project type:

autoscale (Recommended Default)

Use for stateless websites and APIs that don't need persistent server memory.

• Best for: Web applications, REST APIs, stateless services
• Behavior: Scales up/down based on traffic, only runs when requests arrive
• State: Use databases for persistent state (not server memory)
• Cost: Most cost-effective for variable traffic

vm (Always Running)

Use for applications that need persistent server-side state or long-running processes.

• Best for: Discord/Telegram bots, WebSocket servers, web scrapers, background workers
• Behavior: Always running, maintains state in server memory
• State: Can use in-memory databases, local files, or external databases

scheduled

Use for cron-like jobs that run on a schedule.

• Best for: Data processing, cleanup tasks, periodic reports, batch jobs
• Behavior: Runs on configured schedule, not continuously
• Note: Do NOT use for websites or APIs

static

Use for client-side websites with no backend server.

• Best for: Static HTML sites, SPAs (React, Vue, etc.), documentation sites
• Behavior: Serves static files directly, no server-side processing
• Note: The

  run

  command is ignored; must specify

  publicDir

Deployment Configuration in Pnpm workspace

In a PNPM workspace, deployment configuration lives in each artifact's

.replit-artifact/artifact.toml

file, not in

.replit

. The

.replit

file's

deployment.run

is ignored and each artifact's

artifact.toml

controls run/build commands.

.replit

's

deployment.build

acts only as a pre-build hook that runs at the repo root before artifact-specific builds.

Each artifact's

[services.production]

section controls:

• run

  — the production run command

• build

  — the production build command

• serve

  — whether to serve as

  static

  or run a process

• publicDir

  — directory containing static files (for static serve mode)

To update these settings, use

verifyAndReplaceArtifactToml

from the

artifacts

skill.

Best Practices

1. Validate before publishing: Always verify the project works before suggesting publish
2. Use production servers: Avoid insecure development servers in production
3. Choose the right target: Match deployment type to your application's needs
4. Configure once: Set up deployment config early, then suggest publishing when ready
5. Check workflows first: Ensure workflows are running without errors before publishing

Important Notes

1. User-initiated publishing: The user must click the Publish button to actually deploy
2. Automatic handling: Publishing handles building, hosting, TLS, and health checks automatically
3. Domain: Published apps are available at a

   .replit.app

   domain or custom domain if configured
4. Production config lives in

   artifact.toml

   : Each artifact's deployment settings are in its

   .replit-artifact/artifact.toml

   file, not in

   .replit

   . Always check

   artifact.toml

   when configuring deployment.

Example Workflow

// 1. To update deployment settings, use verifyAndReplaceArtifactToml
// from the artifacts skill (temp-file workflow)

// 2. After verifying the app works, suggest publishing to the user
await suggestDeploy();