Flow B: Deploy from a Registry

Flow B pulls a pre-built image from a container registry instead of building on the web host.

CI builds image -> registry -> web host pulls image -> systemd service -> Caddy HTTPS

Use Flow B When

• Your CI already builds and publishes images.
• You want faster deploys on small web hosts.
• You are deploying a third-party app that already publishes images.

Add or Update the App

Register the app and snapshot its compose file in one step:

er app add my-app my-server \
  --deploy-flow flow_b \
  --compose-file ./docker-compose.yaml

Or register first and attach the compose file later:

er app add my-app my-server --deploy-flow flow_b

er app update-details my-app my-server \
  --compose-file ./docker-compose.yaml

--compose-file reads a Compose-format file at command time and stores its content on the app. If you edit the file later — including changing a service.domain — run er app update-details --compose-file ... again. The public domain comes from the xyz.easyrunner.service.domain label, not a CLI flag.

Compose-Format Shape

name: my-app
services:
  web:
    image: ghcr.io/yourname/your-app:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      - easyrunner_proxy_network
    labels:
      xyz.easyrunner.service.type: web
      xyz.easyrunner.service.domain: app.example.com
      xyz.easyrunner.service.port: "3000"

networks:
  easyrunner_proxy_network:
    name: easyrunner_proxy_network
    external: true

Private GHCR Images

Store the registry pull credentials as reserved app secrets:

er app secret set my-app EASYRUNNER_GHCR_USERNAME
er app secret set my-app EASYRUNNER_GHCR_PAT

Use a classic GitHub PAT with read:packages for GHCR pulls.

Deploy

er app deploy my-app my-server

Flow B ignores --branch; it deploys the image references in the stored Compose-format content.

Compose-format changes are not taking effect

Flow B stores Compose-format content when you run er app update-details --compose-file. Rerun that command after editing the file, then deploy again.