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Catalyst App Deployment

Use this flow to deploy a Catalyst web app consisting of the SSR server and the emitted static assets.

Production Flow​

  1. Build the production bundle with catalyst build or npm run build.
  2. Start the production server with catalyst serve, npm run serve, or a process manager entrypoint.
  3. Route logs to stdout and stderr so the app behaves well in containers and managed infrastructure.

Build Output​

Catalyst produces:

  • client assets under build/public/
  • the server bundle under build/server.js

If you use code splitting, Catalyst also emits the stats needed to resolve route chunks correctly at runtime.

Required Configuration​

Set production values in config/config.json before building:

  • NODE_SERVER_HOSTNAME
  • NODE_SERVER_PORT
  • PUBLIC_STATIC_ASSET_URL
  • PUBLIC_STATIC_ASSET_PATH
  • BUILD_OUTPUT_PATH

Use a production-ready PUBLIC_STATIC_ASSET_URL, especially when assets are served from a CDN or a dedicated static host.

Process Management​

Catalyst apps are commonly run behind PM2 or inside a container. A typical PM2 runtime entrypoint looks like:

NODE_ENV=production BUILD_ENV=production pm2-runtime ./ecosystem.config.js --wait-ready --listen-timeout 15000

ecosystem.config.js usually controls:

  • process name
  • restart policy
  • memory limits
  • timeouts

Pre-Deploy Checklist​

  • confirm production config values
  • verify the public asset URL matches the deployed asset host
  • validate SSR routes and metadata in the built app
  • confirm logs and monitoring are wired for the server process
  • smoke-test the built app with catalyst serve before shipping

Docker​

FROM node:18-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build
EXPOSE 3005
CMD ["npm", "run", "serve"]