Deploying a Node.js server to Fly.io

In this guide, we'll show you how to go from zero to production using Nx and Node.js server support. We'll use Fastify as the frameworks of choice, but you can also use Express and Koa by selecting those frameworks during project creation. We'll also cover how to configure the same setup for existing Node.js projects.

Prefer a video version? Watch this short video to learn how to start a Node.js server project with Nx.

Creating the project

You can create a new server project with a single command.

npx create-nx-workspace@latest my-api \
  --preset=node-standalone \ # create a Node.js project
  --framework=fastify \      # other options are express and koa
  --docker                   # generates a Dockerfile (we'll need this)

Once the command is finished, you can cd into the workspace.

cd my-api

To run the server, use nx serve and the server should start on http://localhost:3333. You can also run the e2e tests against the running server by running nx e2e e2e in a separate tab. Note that the e2e project is separate from the server project, thus the need to specify it in the nx e2e <project> command.

For existing projects, see the next section, otherwise you can skip to deployment.

Configure existing projects

Skip this step if you are not configuring an exist project.

If you have an existing Node.js server project, you can add the same deployment capabilities as we've just covered. Firstly, if the project is not an Nx project you can initialize it as such by running the npx nx init command in your project. Next, we can add the build and docker-build targets by invoking a couple of generators.

You will need to install @nrwl/node and @nrwl/esbuild if you haven't already.

npm i -D @nrwl/node @nrwl/esbuild

Now, set up the build and Docker targets with these commands. You will be prompted to select the project to configure.

# Add build target
# You can skip this step if your project already has a build target.
nx g @nrwl/esbuild:esbuild-project --skipValidation

# Add Dockerfile
nx g @nrwl/node:setup-docker

You are now ready to deploy the project.

Deploying the server to Fly.io

Recall that a Dockerfile has been created for our project. If you missed the Docker setup, you can always run the nx g @nrwl/node:setup-docker command to generate the Dockerfile.

Now, all we need to do is set up Fly.io and deploy! If you haven't used Fly.io before, you need to install the CLI and create an account. It'll only take a couple of minutes.

Install flyctl - This is the Fly.io CLI.
Create an account with fly auth signup or fly auth login.

If you run into any issues, please refer to their getting started guide.

Once you have authenticated using fly, we are ready to launch our project.

fly launch --generate-name --no-deploy

Follow the prompts and a fly.toml file will be generated, which contains the Fly.io configuration. We need to update this file with the correct port used by our image.

[[services]]
http_checks = []
internal_port = 3000 # Make sure this matches the port in Dockerfile

Now we can build and deploy the server.

nx build
fly deploy

Fly.io will log out the monitoring link when the server is successfully deployed. You can open the server in a browser using the fly open command.

That's is! Our server is now deployed for the world to use.

Adding deploy command

You can add a deploy target to the project by add this to the project.json file (under "targets").

"deploy": {
  "dependsOn": [
    "build"
  ],
  "command": "fly deploy"
}

Then you can run nx deploy, which will run the build (if necessary) before deploying.