OpenCel A self-hosted deployment platform

overview

OpenCel packages the essential deployment loop into a self-hostable platform: repositories become projects, commits become deployments, pull requests receive previews, and a known-good build can be promoted to production from the dashboard.

problem

Modern deployment platforms are excellent but move build history, runtime logs, secrets, domains, and release control into infrastructure the team does not own. Recreating that workflow safely requires much more than a build button: queues, isolation, state transitions, routing, observability, upgrades, and recovery all have to agree.

approach

I split the system into a Go API, deployment worker, Next.js control plane, PostgreSQL state, Redis coordination, a CLI, and Docker Compose release stacks. Environment variables are encrypted, build and runtime logs stream into the product, database changes use controlled migrations, and upgrades preserve backup and rollback paths.

outcome

OpenCel now supports the complete single-host deployment path: connect a GitHub repository, trigger builds from pushes and pull requests, serve preview URLs, promote to production, inspect logs, and update an installation without rebuilding the server by hand.

selected details

• Push and pull-request builds with per-deployment preview URLs
• Production promotion, encrypted environment variables, and streamed logs
• Go API and worker with Next.js dashboard, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Docker
• Installer, signed update path, backups, rollback, and controlled database upgrades