getting started

Quickstart

This page takes a fresh VPS to a running application in about ten minutes, and explains every file it creates along the way. You need a server with a public IP, a domain pointed at it, and SSH access.

1. Install #

On the server, as a user with sudo:

$ curl -fsSL https://walden.sh/install | sh

The installer places a single binary in /usr/local/bin/walden and checks that podman, systemd and Caddy are present, installing any that are missing from your distribution's own repositories.

2. Describe your app #

In your project directory, walden init writes a minimal walden.toml:

name   = "notes-app"
domain = "notes.example.com"
port   = 3000

3. Deploy #

$ walden up
  building notes-app from Containerfile…
  ok  image built         4.2s
  ok  unit installed      notes-app.service
  ok  route published     notes.example.com
  ok  certificate issued  Let's Encrypt

  live at https://notes.example.com

That's the whole deploy. Walden built the image with podman, installed a systemd unit to keep it running, appended a Caddy block for the domain, and reloaded. Every file it wrote is printed to the terminal.

4. Look around #

Everything walden created is a plain file:

~/.config/systemd/user/notes-app.servicethe unit

/etc/caddy/walden.d/notes-app.caddythe route

/var/lib/walden/builds/notes-app/kept builds, for rollback

Where next #

Databases and volumes → Secrets → Command reference →

← Installing walden Preparing a server →