wheels deploy init

Scaffold the files wheels deploy reads: config/deploy.yml, .kamal/secrets, a Dockerfile and a .dockerignore. Also creates .kamal/hooks/ (empty) for optional hook scripts.

Synopsis

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wheels deploy init [--service=<name>] [--image=<path>] [--registry-username=<user>] [--force]

Flags

Flag	Description
--service=<name>	Service name to bake in. Defaults to the project directory basename.
--image=<path>	Image path. Defaults to <service>/web.
--registry-username=<user>	Registry username. Defaults to changeme — you’ll edit it.
--force	Overwrite existing files. Without this, an existing config/deploy.yml or Dockerfile aborts with DeployMainCli.InitAlreadyExists (exit code 1). An existing .kamal/secrets is never overwritten, even with --force.

What it creates

• config/deploy.yml — a starter manifest with service, image, servers, registry, env stubs.
• .kamal/secrets — empty KAMAL_REGISTRY_PASSWORD= and WHEELS_RELOAD_PASSWORD= entries plus comments showing $(cmd) and ${VAR} lookups. Created owner-only (0600).
• Dockerfile — a Lucee-based image for the app. Review the COPY paths.
• .dockerignore — kept if one already exists, unless --force.
• .kamal/hooks/ — empty directory. Drop executable pre-deploy, post-deploy, or post-deploy-failure scripts here later.

init also adds .kamal/secrets to .gitignore (unless git already ignores it). If the file is already tracked, it prints a warning: run git rm --cached .kamal/secrets and rotate the secrets it held.

Example

example

wheels deploy init
wheels deploy init --service=myapp --image=ghcr.io/myorg/myapp --registry-username=myorg

After running, edit both files — see Your First Deploy for the walk-through.