Self-host your bots, APIs & AI workers on a VPS.

Think: a computer you rent on the internet

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a small always-on Linux computer in a data center. You connect to it using SSH — basically a secure remote terminal — install what your app needs, and keep your code running there.

Docker makes the server predictable

Instead of manually installing every Node/Python dependency on the VPS, Docker packages the app runtime into a container. Think of Docker as a sealed lunchbox containing your app and everything it needs; the container is that lunchbox while it is running. A Compose file describes how it starts, restarts, mounts storage, and exposes ports.

Recommended repository shape

your-app/
├── Dockerfile
├── compose.yaml
├── .dockerignore
├── .env.example
├── package.json / requirements.txt
├── src/
└── scripts/

Keep runtime data outside the Git repository. The repository should be replaceable without deleting production data.

Persistent host layout

~/apps/your-app/
├── app/        ← Git clone / source
└── runtime/
    ├── data/
    ├── backups/
    └── logs/

This separation lets you rebuild the container or pull new code while keeping the database and backups on the host disk.

Bot / worker Compose pattern

services:
  app:
    build: .
    restart: unless-stopped
    env_file: .env
    volumes:
      - ../runtime/data:/app/data
      - ../runtime/backups:/app/backups
      - ../runtime/logs:/app/logs

    # Optional local-only health endpoint:
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"

If the bot has no HTTP health server, omit the ports block entirely.

API Compose pattern

services:
  api:
    build: .
    restart: unless-stopped
    env_file: .env
    volumes:
      - ../runtime/data:/app/data
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"

Bind to localhost and let a reverse proxy expose HTTPS publicly. This keeps the raw application port off the public internet.

Caddy example

After DNS points to your reachable VPS endpoint and ports 80/443 can reach the server:

api.example.com {
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:3000
}

Provider networking matters

Some VPS providers give a direct public IPv4. Others use NAT, forwarded ports, HAProxy domains, or provider-managed ingress. Configure the method your host supports.

SHA-256 on Linux

sha256sum /path/to/backup.sqlite

SHA-256 on Windows PowerShell

Get-FileHash "C:\path\backup.sqlite" -Algorithm SHA256