Deploy to Production

Vercel (Recommended)

Vercel is the easiest way to deploy a Next.js application. It provides automatic builds, preview deployments, and a global edge network.

1. Push your code to a GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket repository.
2. Go to vercel.com/new and import your repository.
3. Vercel auto-detects Next.js — accept the defaults and click "Deploy".
4. Every push to the main branch triggers a production deployment. Pull requests get preview URLs automatically.

No build configuration is needed. Vercel handles npm run build and serves the output from their global CDN.

Self-Hosted (Node.js)

You can run the production build on any server with Node.js 18+ installed.

# Build the application
npm run build

# Start the production server
npm run start

# The server runs on port 3000 by default.
# Use the PORT environment variable to change it:
PORT=8080 npm run start

For production, use a process manager like PM2 to keep the server running and handle restarts:

npm install -g pm2
pm2 start npm --name "apex-dashboard" -- start
pm2 save

Docker

Create a Dockerfile at the project root for containerized deployments:

FROM node:20-alpine AS base

# Install dependencies
FROM base AS deps
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production

# Build the application
FROM base AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

# Production image
FROM base AS runner
WORKDIR /app
ENV NODE_ENV=production
COPY --from=builder /app/public ./public
COPY --from=builder /app/.next/standalone ./
COPY --from=builder /app/.next/static ./.next/static

EXPOSE 3000
ENV PORT=3000
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

Build and run the container:

docker build -t apex-dashboard .
docker run -p 3000:3000 apex-dashboard

Note: For the standalone output to work, add output: "standalone" to your next.config.ts.

Environment Variables

Apex Dashboard currently uses no required environment variables since all data is mock/hardcoded. When you connect a real backend, you will typically need:

Create a .env.local file at the project root for local development. Never commit this file to version control.

Next Steps

Check the Changelog for the latest updates and release notes.