Ship and Rebuild

Ship and Rebuild

Two commands for the "edit locally, deploy remotely" workflow. ship handles the full git-to-deploy cycle in one step; rebuild builds Docker images on the target host.

Since: v0.22.0

Ship

Commit, push, and rebuild on the remote VPS in a single command:

strut my-app ship --env prod
strut my-app ship --env prod -m "fix dashboard layout"
strut my-app ship --env prod --no-commit          # just push + rebuild
strut my-app ship --env prod --no-push            # just remote rebuild
strut my-app ship --env prod --dry-run

What It Does

1. git add -A && git commit -m "<message>" (skippable)
2. git push origin <branch> (skippable)
3. SSH to VPS: cd <deploy_dir> && git pull && strut <stack> rebuild --env <name>

Options

Flag	Description
--env <name>	Environment (required)
--message <msg> / -m <msg>	Commit message (default: update <stack>)
--no-commit	Skip the commit step
--no-push	Skip the push step (just remote rebuild)
--no-cache	Pass --no-cache to the remote rebuild
--dry-run	Show execution plan without running

When to Use

• Rapid iteration on remote-only services (not buildable locally)
• Quick fixes that don't need a full release pipeline
• When you want commit + deploy as one atomic action

Rebuild

Build Docker images on the target host and deploy. Unlike deploy (which pulls pre-built images), rebuild runs docker compose build on the VPS:

strut my-app rebuild --env prod
strut my-app rebuild --env prod --no-cache
strut my-app rebuild --env prod --pull
strut my-app rebuild --env prod --dry-run

Options

Flag	Description
--env <name>	Environment (required)
--no-cache	Build without Docker cache
--pull	Pull base images before building
--dry-run	Show execution plan without running

When to Use

• Stacks that build from source (not a pre-built registry image)
• When you need to rebuild with updated dependencies
• After changing a Dockerfile

Ship vs Release vs Deploy

Command	Where It Runs	Git Flow	Builds?	Migrations?
ship	VPS (via SSH)	commit + push + pull	Yes (rebuild)	No
release	VPS (via SSH)	pull only	No (pulls images)	Yes
deploy	Local (or VPS if SSH'd in)	None	No (pulls images)	No
rebuild	VPS (via SSH)	None	Yes (docker build)	No

Choose:

• release for production deploys with migrations and health gates
• ship for quick iterative deploys of source-built services
• rebuild when you just need to rebuild images (no git flow)
• deploy for simple image-pull deploys