For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. This page is also available as Markdown.

Deployment Decision Guide, What You Need Before Starting

You'll make three choices during deployment. Review them now so they're familiar when you encounter them later in the guide.

Three Key Decisions

Decision

Recommended (for most customers)

Advanced

Container registry (see ECR Access Configuration)

Use Hivel's ECR (scoped credentials, Hivel manages distribution)

Use your own ECR (you control image distribution; requires custom configuration)

Deploying services (see Deployment Methods)

Deploy.sh script (fastest, automates authentication and health checks)

Docker Compose directly (manual, for custom orchestration or staged rollouts)

Public / HTTPS access (see Verification and Access and the DNS Setup page)

Route53 + ALB or Caddy with domain (trusted, auto-renewing certificate)

Direct EC2 IP or Caddy self-signed (testing only; never for production)

Prerequisites Checklist

Before you start, confirm you have:

  • AWS Account with permissions to create EC2, RDS, and (if using your own ECR) container repositories

  • EC2 instance provisioned (see sizing requirements)

  • RDS PostgreSQL instance (you'll provision this in RDS Database Setup, coming up in this guide)

  • AWS CLI installed and configured on the VM

  • Docker and Docker Compose installed on the VM

  • PostgreSQL client (psql) installed on the VM. Used to test RDS and create the database

  • Hivel license files (license_signed.json). Provided by your Hivel contact

  • Hivel AWS Access Credentials (Access Key ID and Secret Access Key). For ECR access

  • Hivel S3 Download Access. Bucket path or pre-signed URL for the installer package

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