Deployment Architecture

Last updated: February 2026

Platform

Dokploy — a self-hosted deployment platform running on a VPS with Traefik as the reverse proxy for SSL termination, routing, and automatic HTTPS certificates.

Each application is configured as a separate Dokploy Application that builds from its Dockerfile directly from the Git repository on push to main.

Applications

Application	Dockerfile	Domain	Build Strategy
API	apps/api/Dockerfile	api.emtb.consulting	Multi-stage: builder → pruner → runner (Node Alpine)
Frontend	apps/frontend/Dockerfile	app.emtb.consulting	Multi-stage: deps → builder → Nginx Alpine
Docs Site	docs-site/Dockerfile	docs.emtb.consulting	Docusaurus static build → Nginx

Infrastructure

Service	Provider	Notes
PostgreSQL 16	Dokploy-managed	Automated backups, single instance
Redis 7	Dokploy-managed	API response caching
Traefik	Dokploy-managed	Reverse proxy, Let's Encrypt SSL
Object Storage	S3/R2-compatible	Document uploads (claim files)

Environments

Environment	Frontend	API	Purpose
Development	localhost:5173	localhost:3001	Local development (Vite dev server + NestJS watch mode)
Production	app.emtb.consulting	api.emtb.consulting	Live environment

Note: There is no staging environment. Production is the only deployed environment until after go-live.

Deployment Flow

1. Developer pushes to main branch
2. Dokploy detects the push via watch paths
3. Each application rebuilds independently using its Dockerfile
4. Traefik routes traffic to the updated containers
5. Database migrations run automatically on API startup (migrationsRun: true)

Docker Build Notes

• The monorepo root .dockerignore excludes e2e and docs-site contents but keeps their package.json files so yarn install --immutable can resolve all workspace dependencies.
• All workspace package.json files must be COPYed into the Docker build context.
• .yarn/releases/ and .yarnrc.yml are required for Yarn 4 to work inside Docker.
• The frontend Dockerfile requires a VITE_API_URL build argument to bake in the API URL at build time.

Local Development with SSL

For local development with HTTPS (matching production URLs):

• Frontend: https://emtb.test/
• API: https://api.emtb.test/

This uses a local SSL proxy (e.g., Caddy or mkcert) to serve the Vite and NestJS dev servers over HTTPS.