Introduction

What is Hostess?

Hostess is Docker Compose for Production — a deployment platform that takes a single hostess.yml configuration file and deploys your entire multi-service stack to the cloud.

Modern applications aren't single apps. They're ecosystems of services — frontends, APIs, databases, caches, workers, and more. While platforms like Vercel made deploying a single app effortless, deploying a full stack still meant stitching together multiple services, managing infrastructure, and writing pages of configuration.

Hostess changes that. Define your services, run one command, and your entire stack is live — with automatic service discovery, managed databases, TLS certificates, and more.

hostess deploy

That's it.

How It Works

Hostess follows a simple three-step workflow:

1. Define your stack

Create a hostess.yml file at the root of your project that declares your services, their dependencies, and how they connect:

version: "1.0"
name: my-app

services:
  frontend:
    type: nextjs
    build:
      source: ./frontend
    env:
      NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL: ${api.external_url}
    depends_on:
      - api

  api:
    type: fastapi
    build:
      source: ./backend
    env:
      DATABASE_URL: ${database.url}
    depends_on:
      - database

  database:
    type: postgres
    resources: medium

2. Deploy with a single command

Run hostess deploy from your terminal. Hostess handles the rest:

• Builds container images from your source code
• Provisions managed databases
• Generates production-grade infrastructure
• Wires services together with automatic service discovery
• Issues TLS certificates for HTTPS
• Deploys everything in the correct dependency order

3. Your stack is live

Every service gets a unique URL on the hostess.run domain. Your frontend is accessible, your API is connected to your database, and everything just works.

✓ Deployment complete

frontend: https://my-app-frontend-k7xm9p2q.hostess.run
api:      https://my-app-api-a3x9d2m1.hostess.run
database: hostess connect database

Why Hostess?

Key Concepts

Before diving in, here are the core concepts you'll encounter throughout the documentation:

Services

A service is any component of your application — a web frontend, an API backend, a database, a cache, a worker process, or any containerized application. Services are defined in your hostess.yml file.

Hostess supports several service types with smart defaults:

• nextjs — Next.js applications
• fastapi — FastAPI applications
• postgres — Managed PostgreSQL databases
• redis — Managed Redis instances
• custom — Any containerized application

Magic Variables

Magic variables are the way services discover and connect to each other. Instead of hardcoding URLs or managing environment variables manually, you reference other services using a simple syntax:

env:
  DATABASE_URL: ${database.url}           # Internal database URL
  API_URL: ${api.external_url}            # Public API URL
  CACHE_URL: ${cache.url}                 # Internal Redis URL
  JWT_SECRET: ${secret:JWT_SECRET}        # Secret from Hostess vault

Hostess resolves these at deploy time, wiring everything together automatically.

Environments

Environments represent different stages of your deployment lifecycle. Every project starts with a production environment, and you can add preview, staging, or custom environments with their own configuration, domains, and secrets.

Projects and Organizations

A project corresponds to one hostess.yml configuration — your entire application stack. Projects live inside organizations, which provide team management, billing, and access control.

Next Steps