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This page walks through a first deployment: the plan, the approvals in the local dashboard, the credentials form, the deploy itself and how to tear it down safely.

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Before you start

  • Monk is installed and your agent is signed in. If not, follow the Quickstart. To check, ask /monk check installation status.
  • To deploy to a cloud, have access to an account on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, DigitalOcean or Hetzner. Credentials explains what each one needs. You don’t have to enter anything yet: Monk asks when the plan needs it.
  • To try Monk without a cloud account, ask for a local deployment. It runs on your own machine.
Resources Monk creates in your cloud account are billed to you by your provider. The plan shows an estimated cost before anything is created.

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1. Ask for a plan

Open your app’s repository in your coding agent and ask:
You can be more specific if you already know what you want:
Your coding agent reads the code and writes what Monk needs to run it: Dockerfiles where they’re missing, and Monk’s MANIFEST, which describes the services and how they connect. Monk validates that configuration and prepares the plan. If your project already has a docker-compose file or infrastructure code, the agent uses it to understand the app. Monk doesn’t take over or change your existing deployment. It builds a new one alongside it. Monk may ask a few questions first, such as which team the project belongs to (your personal account or one of your organizations) and which cloud and region to use.

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2. Review the plan in the local dashboard

The plan opens in the local dashboard under Work. It shows:
  • the services Monk will deploy and how they connect
  • the infrastructure it will create, such as the cluster’s provider, region, instance type and count
  • warnings and any missing configuration
  • the estimated cost
Approve it, or decline and ask your agent to change something. Nothing is created until you approve.

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3. Enter credentials

If the plan needs a cloud credential or a secret, such as a database password or an API key for a service, Monk opens a form in the local dashboard. Depending on the provider you type the values, upload a key file or sign in to the provider from the form. Some secret fields can generate a random value for you. Never paste credentials into the chat. The form keeps them away from the coding agent. See Credentials for what each provider needs.

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4. Deploy

After you approve, Monk creates the cluster, builds the container images and deploys the services in the order the MANIFEST describes. Your agent shows progress in the chat and checks that each service is ready before calling the deployment done. If something fails, the agent reads the status and logs from Monk, fixes the code or configuration and asks Monk to deploy again. Any new infrastructure or privileged action still needs your approval.

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What you get

When the deployment finishes, your agent reports the services that are running, where to reach them and the estimated monthly cost. From then on you can ask:
The Environments and Clusters pages in the local dashboard show the same state.

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Tear it down safely

When you’re done trying things out, delete the cluster so your provider stops billing for it:
The deletion waits for your approval in the local dashboard.
Deleting a cluster deletes everything on it, including the data in databases Monk runs on the cluster. Export any data you want to keep before you approve. You can deploy the app again later from the same repository, but the data won’t come back.

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If something goes wrong

Wrong or under-permissioned credentials are a common cause. Check the page for your cloud under Credentials, or see Troubleshooting.

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Next

Deploy an app that's already running

Data moves and traffic cutover

Set up CI/CD

Deploy with GitHub Actions on every push

Watcher and alerts

Crash and resource alerts in Slack

Costs

Estimates, usage and billing alerts