Deploy your first app

End-to-end walkthrough: pick an image, fill a short form, watch it go live. About five minutes.

This guide takes you from a container image to a live URL. You should already have an Ownkube account, a connected AWS account, a cluster, and a registry.

Open the create-deployment flow from your dashboard to follow along.

Before you start

A cluster in the active state
A connected registry or GitHub repository with at least one image built and pushed (Amazon ECR, a build from your GitHub repository, or a public image)
The image tag you want to deploy (e.g. v1.4.2, a git SHA, or latest)
The port your app listens on

Create the deployment

Open the create-deployment page

Open the create-deployment flow from your dashboard.

Pick a resource type

Web, HTTP service with an optional public hostname
Worker, long-running background process, no HTTP endpoint
Job, runs to completion; add a cron schedule for repeat runs
Database, managed PostgreSQL (see Databases)

Pick Web for this walkthrough.

Pick a target

Cluster, any active cluster in your organization
Environment, Development or Production by default, or create a new one inline. See Environments.

Configure the container

Registry, one of your connected registries
Repository, autocompletes from the registry (e.g. your-org/api)
Tag, autocompletes from the repository. Pin a specific tag like v1.4.2 instead of latest. It makes every deploy traceable to a known image.
Port, the port your app listens on (e.g. 3000)

Add environment variables

Any number of KEY=value pairs. Flip the Secret toggle on individual entries to mask sensitive values in the UI. See Environment variables for the full reference.

Toggle public exposure (web only)

Turn on Make this deployment public to get a generated hostname with automatic TLS.

(Optional) Set resources and health probes

You can leave resources blank to start. For health probes, a readiness probe pointed at /health or /ready is typically enough for a web app. See Deployments for the full field list.

Click Create deployment

The detail page opens with live status. You'll see image pull, startup, and health-check progression in real time.

Verify it's running

When the deployment reaches healthy on the Overview tab:

Click the generated hostname (under Public hostname if you toggled public on)
You should see your app

If the status is degraded, a health probe is failing. Open the Overview tab and look at the live event stream. The failure reason is surfaced there. Common causes:

App listens on a different port than the one you configured
Health-check path returns a non-2xx status
Container crashes on startup. Check that the image tag is correct and the required env vars are set.

What happens on subsequent deploys

Push a new image to your registry, then come back to your dashboard, click your deployment, go to Settings, update the Tag field, and Save. The platform rolls a new version out. New containers come up, pass health checks, and take traffic while the old ones drain.

No separate "deploy button", no pipeline config to maintain.

Environment variables

Secrets, plain-text config, and auto-injected database credentials.

Databases

Attach managed Postgres with auto-injected credentials.

Don't see a feature you need? Email support@ownkube.io. Ownkube is shaped by the teams using it and we ship what our users ask for.