Deploy a Laravel app

No Dockerfile or nginx config is needed. We build every PHP app from the official php:X.Y-fpm image:

• PHP version comes from require.php in composer.json (or config.platform.php). We support 8.2 to 8.5 and prefer 8.4 when your constraint allows it.
• Extensions: bcmath, intl, opcache, pcntl, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql and zip are always installed. Anything your app or its packages declare as ext-* in composer.json or composer.lock is added.
• Frontend assets: if package.json has a build script, it runs on Node 22 after composer install, and the result lands in public/build.
• On start we run storage:link, config:cache, route:cache and view:cache (plus a fresh SQLite file and migrations if the app is still on SQLite), then start PHP-FPM and nginx with public/ as the web root.
• Logs go to stderr (LOG_CHANNEL=stderr), so they show in the Logs tab.

Trust the platform's proxy so Laravel generates https:// URLs and asset links. In bootstrap/app.php (Laravel 11+):

->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
    $middleware->trustProxies(at: '*');
})

Add these in the project's settings before the first deploy:

APP_KEY=base64:...        # php artisan key:generate --show
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=https://myapp.ethiodeploy.com

Config is cached at start, after env vars are loaded, so a changed value takes effect on the next deploy. VITE_ values are baked into the assets at build time. See Environment variables.

Add a MySQL or Postgres addon. Its connection string is injected as DATABASE_URL, but Laravel 11 and later read DB_URL. Make the connection you use fall back to it in config/database.php:

'pgsql' => [
    'driver' => 'pgsql',
    'url' => env('DB_URL', env('DATABASE_URL')),
    // ...
],

Then set DB_CONNECTION=pgsql (or mysql). Laravel 10 and earlier already read DATABASE_URL. Run migrations before the server starts by setting the Start command to:

php artisan migrate --force && ethiodeploy-start

ethiodeploy-start is the script that warms the caches and starts nginx and PHP-FPM, so keep it at the end.

Laravel 11+ stores cache, sessions and queued jobs in the database by default, which works once migrations have run. To move them to Redis, add a Redis addon (REDIS_URL is injected) and set:

CACHE_STORE=redis
SESSION_DRIVER=redis
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis

Laravel's default Redis client is the phpredis extension. Add "ext-redis": "*" to require in composer.json so it's installed, or install predis/predis and set REDIS_CLIENT=predis.

Addons are private to the project that owns them, so a separate worker project can't reach your database or Redis. Run the queue worker and the scheduler in the same container:

php artisan migrate --force && (php artisan queue:work --tries=3 &) && (php artisan schedule:work &) && ethiodeploy-start

The background processes aren't restarted on their own if they crash, so check the Logs tab after changes. For low volume, QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync runs jobs inline and needs no worker at all.

Files written to storage/app are lost on the next deploy, because each deploy starts a fresh container. Use the s3 disk with any S3-compatible storage for user uploads. Requests up to 64 MB are accepted.

1. Sign in with GitHub and install the EthioDeploy app on the repo.
2. Click “New Project” and pick the repo.
3. Watch the build in the dashboard. When the health check passes, your app is live at <project-slug>.ethiodeploy.com. Every push to the default branch redeploys, and the old version keeps serving until the new one is healthy.