Deployment Patterns for Scientia Stack

Deploy to Vercel, Railway, or Docker following proven patterns from 98+ projects.

Platform Selection

Choose based on project type:

Project Type	Platform	Reason
Next.js frontend	Vercel	Native support, edge functions
Python backend	Railway	Nixpacks, health checks
ML/GPU workloads	RunPod	GPU access, vLLM
Local development	Docker	Consistent environment

Vercel Deployment (19 projects)

Standard vercel.json for Monorepo

{
  "framework": "nextjs",
  "installCommand": "cd frontend && npm install",
  "buildCommand": "cd frontend && npm run build",
  "outputDirectory": "frontend/.next"
}

Environment Variables

1. Set in Vercel Dashboard or CLI:

   vercel env add VITE_SUPABASE_URL production
   vercel env add VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY production
   

2. For preview deployments, use preview scope.

SPA Routing

Add to frontend/vercel.json:

{
  "rewrites": [
    { "source": "/(.*)", "destination": "/" }
  ]
}

Deploy Command

# Production
vercel --prod

# Preview
vercel

Railway Deployment (2 projects)

Standard railway.json

{
  "$schema": "https://railway.com/railway.schema.json",
  "build": {
    "builder": "NIXPACKS",
    "buildCommand": "poetry install --no-dev"
  },
  "deploy": {
    "startCommand": "poetry run python -m src.vozlux.main",
    "healthcheckPath": "/health",
    "healthcheckTimeout": 300,
    "restartPolicyType": "ON_FAILURE",
    "restartPolicyMaxRetries": 3
  }
}

Environment Variables

Railway requires manual dashboard configuration for sensitive vars:

• Go to: https://railway.com/project/{project-id}/settings
• Add each variable under "Variables" tab

Common variables for Python backends:

SUPABASE_URL
SUPABASE_SERVICE_KEY
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
GOOGLE_API_KEY
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN

Health Check Endpoint

Always implement /health:

@app.get("/health")
async def health():
    return {"status": "healthy", "timestamp": datetime.utcnow().isoformat()}

Docker Deployment (5 projects)

Multi-stage Dockerfile

# Build stage
FROM python:3.11-slim as builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY pyproject.toml poetry.lock ./
RUN pip install poetry && poetry export -f requirements.txt > requirements.txt

# Runtime stage
FROM python:3.11-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /app/requirements.txt .
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
COPY src/ ./src/
CMD ["python", "-m", "src.main"]

docker-compose.yml for Development

version: '3.8'
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    env_file:
      - .env
    volumes:
      - ./src:/app/src

Pre-Deployment Checklist

Before any deployment:

1. All tests passing (npm test or pytest)
2. No hardcoded API keys (grep for patterns)
3. Environment variables documented in .env.example
4. CLAUDE.md updated with deployment status
5. Build succeeds locally (npm run build or poetry build)

Debugging Deployment Failures

Vercel Failures

1. Check build logs: vercel logs
2. Common issues:
   • Missing env vars → Check Vercel dashboard
   • Build timeout → Increase in project settings
   • Module not found → Check package.json dependencies

Railway Failures

1. Check logs in dashboard
2. Common issues:
   • Health check timeout → Increase healthcheckTimeout
   • Missing env vars → Must set manually in dashboard
   • Poetry lock issues → Delete poetry.lock and regenerate

Docker Failures

1. Build locally first: docker build -t test .
2. Run with logs: docker run -it test
3. Check for missing system dependencies

CI/CD Integration

For GitHub Actions, use:

name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: amondnet/vercel-action@v25
        with:
          vercel-token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          vercel-org-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          vercel-project-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          vercel-args: '--prod'