Overview
The single most important command. Reads your entire config tree, compares it to the current state of your infrastructure, and makes reality match your config. Connects to VPS targets over SSH, provisions Docker containers, configures Caddy, connects database adapters, sets up cloud adapters — then disconnects. Agentless — nothing persistent runs on your servers on Applad’s behalf. Think of it liketerraform apply but for your entire backend: tables, auth, storage, functions, deployments, realtime, messaging — all of it.
Usage
Options
Reconciles only a single named environment instead of all environments. Useful when you want to push changes to staging without touching production, or when setting up a new environment for the first time.
Watches your config files for changes and automatically runs
applad up whenever a file is saved. Intended for local development only — do not use this in production or CI.Shows exactly what
applad up would do without actually doing anything. Like terraform plan. Shows which SSH connections would be opened, which Docker operations would run, which source repos would be fetched, which cloud resources would be provisioned or torn down, which config has drifted, and which migrations are pending. Always run this before applying changes to a production environment.Examples
Apply all configuration changes
Apply changes to a specific environment
Watch mode for development
Preview changes without applying
Preview changes for a specific environment
Best Practices
- Always run
--dry-runbefore applying changes to production - Never use
--watchin production or CI environments - Use
--envto target specific environments for safer deployments - Review the output carefully, especially for infrastructure changes