Deploy Node.js on Your Own Server
Deploy any Node.js application and Temps handles the rest — installing dependencies, running your start script, and keeping it live with automatic HTTPS and zero-downtime deploys on a VPS you own.
Quickstart
From your project root, deploy with your preferred package manager:
npx @temps-sdk/cli up
Temps detects your package.json, installs dependencies, and runs your start script. Your app is live with HTTPS in about 2 minutes.
What Temps handles automatically
| Feature | How Temps handles it |
|---|---|
| Build | npm install && npm run build (if build script exists) |
| Start | Runs npm start |
| HTTPS | Let's Encrypt certificate, auto-renewed |
| Port | Reads PORT env var, defaults to 3000 |
| WebSockets | Fully supported via reverse proxy |
| Health checks | HTTP health check on your configured path |
| Preview deployments | Every PR gets its own URL |
Managed services
Add a PostgreSQL or Redis database from Project → Services → Add Service:
bunx @temps-sdk/cli services add postgresql -e production
See Deploy with a Database for the full guide.
Environment variables
npx @temps-sdk/cli environments vars set NODE_ENV production -e production npx @temps-sdk/cli environments vars set DATABASE_URL "postgres://..." -e production
Platform behavior
These rules apply to every app deployed on Temps, regardless of framework.
The one requirement: your app must listen on the port in the PORT environment variable and bind to 0.0.0.0 — not localhost or 127.0.0.1. Temps runs your app in a container and routes traffic from the host, so an app bound to localhost only accepts connections from inside the container and will fail its health check.
Health checks
After your container starts, Temps sends HTTP GET requests to verify it is healthy before routing traffic to it.
- Path:
/(the root of your application) - Success: 2 consecutive responses with a 2xx or 3xx status code
- Timeout: 300 seconds (5 minutes) for the app to become healthy
- Retry interval: every 5 seconds
Connection errors while the app is still starting are retried without penalty. If the app returns 4xx or 5xx errors for 60 consecutive seconds, the deployment fails. Customize the check by adding a .temps.yaml to your repository root:
health:
path: /health
status: 200
interval: 30
timeout: 5
retries: 3/health endpoint that returns a simple 200. This avoids issues where / requires authentication or returns a redirect.Auto-injected environment variables
Temps injects these variables into every deployment automatically:
| Variable | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
PORT | Resolved port | The port your app must listen on |
HOST | 0.0.0.0 | Bind address |
SENTRY_DSN | Auto-generated | Error tracking endpoint |
TEMPS_API_URL | Your Temps URL | Platform API endpoint |
TEMPS_API_TOKEN | Deployment token | Authentication for Temps SDKs |
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT | Your Temps OTLP URL | OpenTelemetry trace collection |
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME | Project name | Service identifier for traces |
You do not need to configure these manually. They are available in process.env (Node.js), os.environ (Python), os.Getenv (Go), and the equivalent in other languages.