Using Kamal 2.0 in Production

Summary

Sam Ruby describes publishing an online guide to using Kamal 2.0 for production after finding existing material insufficient for deploying a real project. The guide grew from research for the Deployment and Production chapter of Agile Web Development with Rails 8, then was converted from Pragmatic Programming’s XML grammar to Markdown with GitHub Copilot and proofread with it. It presents an opinionated starter list with defaults and alternatives, covering seven initial requirements alongside Docker builders, container repositories, secret management, hosting choices, load balancing, and managed databases. It also treats production as including database backups, searchable logs, monitoring, and application security, and invites community corrections or additions under a CC0 license.

Takeaways

1. 1

   The guide distinguishes Kamal from the wider Docker ecosystem and identifies builders, container repositories, and secret management as deployment considerations.

2. 2

   Its production checklist extends beyond starting an application to database backups, searchable logs, monitoring, and application security.

3. 3

   The online guide is CC0 licensed, with invitations to add documentation, monitoring tools, alternatives, and corrections.