Your First Deployment

This tutorial walks you through deploying your first application on Temps from start to finish. No prior experience with Temps is required. By the end, you will have a live application with automatic HTTPS, accessible at your own domain.

What you will build

By the end of this tutorial, you will have:

• A running Temps instance on your server
• A Git repository connected to Temps
• A live application deployed from that repository
• Automatic HTTPS via Let's Encrypt
• A custom domain pointing to your app (optional)

Time required: approximately 15 minutes.

What this tutorial covers and does not cover:

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have the following:

Install Temps

SSH into your server and run the Temps installer:

curl -fsSL https://temps.sh/deploy.sh | bash

The installer is interactive. It will walk you through each step:

1. Docker

The installer checks whether Docker is already present. If not, it installs Docker Engine for you. You do not need to install Docker beforehand.

Checking Docker... Not found.
Installing Docker...
Docker installed successfully (v27.x.x)

2. Database

Temps needs PostgreSQL with the TimescaleDB extension. The installer starts a TimescaleDB container automatically:

Starting TimescaleDB...
Database ready on port 16432

3. Domain and SSL

The installer asks for your domain configuration. You have two options:

• Temps Cloud subdomain — Get a free *.temps.sh subdomain automatically. Good for trying Temps out.
• Your own domain — Use your own domain with Let's Encrypt certificates. Required for production.

If you use your own domain, point a DNS A record to your server's IP address before this step:

yourdomain.com  →  A  →  YOUR_SERVER_IP
*.yourdomain.com  →  A  →  YOUR_SERVER_IP

The wildcard record (*) is needed so that each project gets its own subdomain automatically (e.g. my-app.yourdomain.com).

4. Temps binary

The installer downloads the latest Temps release for your platform and places it at /usr/local/bin/temps:

Downloading Temps v0.1.x...
Installed to /usr/local/bin/temps

5. Background service

A systemd service is created so Temps starts automatically on boot and restarts if it crashes:

Created systemd service: temps.service
Temps is running and will start on boot.

6. Verification

The installer generates an API key and verifies the console is reachable:

✓ Temps is running at https://yourdomain.com
✓ API key: tk_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (save this!)

Log in to the dashboard

Open the URL shown at the end of the installation in your browser.

On your first visit, you will see the login screen. If this is a fresh installation, you will be prompted to create an admin account. Choose a strong password and save it somewhere safe.

After logging in, you will see the Dashboard — a summary of your projects, visitors, and page views. It will be empty since you have not deployed anything yet.

The sidebar on the left gives you access to all platform sections:

• Dashboard — Overview of all projects
• Projects — Create and manage your applications
• Storage — KV and Blob storage
• Domains — Manage custom domains and SSL certificates
• Monitoring — Uptime monitors and alerts
• Email — Transactional email configuration
• Git Providers — Connect GitHub or GitLab
• DNS Providers — Configure DNS automation (Cloudflare, etc.)

Connect GitHub

Before you can deploy from a repository, Temps needs access to your GitHub account.

1. In the sidebar, click Git Providers
2. Click Add Git Provider
3. Choose GitHub

You have two connection methods:

After connecting, you should see your provider listed as Active on the Git Providers page.

Create your first project

Now you are ready to deploy an application.

If you have a repository ready

1. In the sidebar, click Projects
2. Click New Project in the top-right corner
3. Select the Browse Repositories tab
4. Find your repository in the list (use the search bar if needed)
5. Click on it to begin setup

If you need a starter project

If you do not have a repository ready, Temps includes built-in templates:

1. Click New Project
2. On the Templates tab, choose one:
   • Next.js SaaS Starter — A full-stack starter with authentication and database
   • Next.js Docs Template — A documentation site with syntax highlighting
3. Click the template card to create a project from it

Configure your project

After selecting a repository or template, Temps asks you to configure the project:

Click Create Project to start the deployment.

Watch it deploy

After creating the project, Temps immediately starts deploying your application. You are taken to the Deployments page where you can watch the process in real-time.

The deployment goes through several stages:

1. Cloning

Temps clones your repository from GitHub. You will see the branch and commit hash:

Cloning repository...
Branch: main
Commit: a1b2c3d "Initial commit"

2. Building

Temps detects your framework and builds a Docker image. For a typical Next.js app, this looks like:

Detected framework: Next.js
Building with Nixpacks...
Installing dependencies...
Running: npm run build
Build complete (42s)

3. Deploying

The built image is started as a Docker container:

Starting container...
Waiting for health check...
Health check passed

4. Going live

Once the health check passes, Temps routes traffic to the new container and provisions an SSL certificate:

Updating routes...
Provisioning SSL certificate...
Deployment complete!

You will see the deployment status change to completed with a green badge on the Deployments page. The deployment entry shows the branch, commit, duration, and a Current label indicating it is the active deployment.

Visit your live app

Your application is now live. You can access it at the URL shown on the project page. Click the Visit button in the top-right corner to open it in a new tab.

Temps automatically assigns a URL based on your project name:

https://my-project.yourdomain.com

If you used the Temps Cloud subdomain option during installation:

https://my-project.yourname.temps.sh

From the project page you can also see:

• Deployment Information — The production and deployment URLs, current status, branch, and commit
• Visitors last 24 hours — A counter that will start populating once you add analytics
• Deployment history — A contribution-graph-style visualization of all deployments over the past year

Add a custom domain

If you want your app to be available at a specific domain like app.yourdomain.com, follow these steps:

Step 1: Add a DNS record

In your DNS provider (Cloudflare, Namecheap, etc.), create a record pointing to your Temps server:

Or, if you want the root domain:

Wait a few minutes for DNS propagation.

Step 2: Add the domain in Temps

1. Open your project in the dashboard
2. Click Domains in the project sidebar
3. Click Add Domain
4. Enter your domain name (e.g. app.yourdomain.com)
5. Select the SSL challenge type:
   • HTTP-01 (default) — Automatic. Works if port 80 is open on your server.
   • DNS-01 — Required for wildcard certificates. Needs a DNS provider configured.
6. Click Add

Step 3: Verify and get your certificate

Temps will verify domain ownership and issue an SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt:

Domain: app.yourdomain.com
Status: Verifying...
Status: Certificate issued!

Your app is now available at https://app.yourdomain.com with a valid SSL certificate that renews automatically.

What to explore next

You have a live application running on your own infrastructure. Here is what to do next: