How to Deploy NestJS Application?: The Platform Generic Steps

• [OPTIONAL] Modify src/main.ts to enable CORS:

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);
  app.enableCors();
  await app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000);
}

• Open .gitignore file and remove the following line to enable pushing the compiled javascript files to the remote repository so that we can download them on the server for hosting.

Remove /dist from .gitignore

• In package.json make sure that it contains scripts defined as

  "build": "nest build",
  "start": "nest start",
  "start:prod": "node dist/main",

In case where you are hosting the application on a server like Heroku that can install dependencies you can include the following in the package.json file.

    "postinstall": "npm run build",

this will automatically run after Heroku has finished installed the dependencies for the project.

• Some Hosting Providers use Procfile for running web applications, like Heroku, so create a file in the root of project named Procfile and add the following single line to it.

  web:npm run start:prod

• Delete the dist folder and run npm run start in command-line/terminal to create the latest version of compiled output files. (Deleting folder first is not necessary but it has proven helpful in some cases).

• Push your changes to GitHub Repository using these three basic commands:

  git add . //Stage All Files including dist folder
  git commit -m "doing it live"
  git push

• Setup your cloud instance on any platform such as:

  • AWS EC2 Instance
  • Digital Ocean
  • Heroku
  • A2Hosting

• Clone the GitHub repository to the instance using the terminal.

• Target your server to launch dist/main.js if required to specify.

In this way, NestJS app will be deployed.

Details when deploying to Heroku

In case of Heroku, create your application on Heroku and install the CLI. Once you have the CLI installed, you will need to run heroku login to log into your account through the CLI. Then, run the following command to deploy the application to the Heroku server.

  heroku git:remote -a MY-HEROKU-APP

Prepare for Heroku Build

There are a couple of final steps to take before pushing code up to Heroku. First, we need to make sure that the environment is configured correctly by running these commands:

  heroku config:set NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION=false
  heroku config:set NODE_ENV=production

The NODE_ENV config should already be set to production by default, but we are changing NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION to false. Since we are performing the TypeScript build on the server (this is what our postinstall script does) we need all of the devDependencies in package.json for it to run properly. If NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION is set to true the devDependencies won't be installed and it won't work.

Push code

Now you can push code up to Heroku. You can do that by running:

  git add .
  git commit -m "doing it live"
  git push heroku master