How to Create an App

To create your app, run the create command. This will also set up a git remote.

This must be run from within a git repository folder.

An app name will be generated for you, but you can also optionally supply an app name if you wish using gigalixir create -n $APP_NAME.

There is currently no way to change your app name once it is created.

If you like, you can also choose which cloud provider and region using the --cloud and --region options.

We currently support GCP in v2018-us-central1 or europe-west1 and AWS in us-east-1 or us-west-2.

The default is v2018-us-central1 on GCP.

gigalixir create

How to Choose a Name for your App

Normally, gigalixir generates a unique name for you automatically, but if you want, you can specify your app name. You’ll need to install the CLI and run something like this

gigalixir create -n $APP_NAME

Once you deploy, you’ll be able to access your app from https://$APP_NAME.gigalixirapp.com.

How to Delete an App

To delete an app, run:

gigalixir apps:destroy

How to Rename an App

There is no way to rename an app, but you can delete it and then create a new one.

Make sure you migrate over your configs if you delete your app to rename it.

How to Scale an App

You can scale your app by adding more memory and CPU to each container, also called a replica.

You can also scale by adding more replicas.

Both are handled by the following command. For more information about sizing and scaling, see replica sizing.

gigalixir ps:scale --replicas=2 --size=0.6

When scaling an app down, please see What Happens when an App Scales Down - Graceful Shutdown.

We highly recommend running at least two replicas as soon as possible. This makes your application more resilient and can help share the load. See Adding More Replicas for benefits and considerations of adding more replicas. Users that solve the “how do I run multiple replicas” concerns early have better success at scaling their applications as they mature.

How to Check App Status

To see how many replicas are actually running in production (compared to how many are actually desired), run:

gigalixir ps

How do I Manage Multiple Apps?

All relevant CLI commands can take an optional --app_name flag to specify which app you want to run the command on. Or, if you prefer, you can use the GIGALIXIR_APP environment variable instead.

Without the app name, Gigalixir tries to auto-detect the app name based on your git remotes - which works fine when you only have one app.

How to List Apps

To see what apps you own and information about them, run the apps command.

This will only show you your desired app configuration.

To see the actual status of your app, see App Status.

gigalixir apps

How to List Releases

Each time you deploy or rollback, a new release is generated.

To see all your previous releases, run:

gigalixir releases

How to View App Activity

We keep a record of each time you deploy, change configs, scale, etc.

To view the activity history, run:

gigalixir apps:activity

How to Restart an App

gigalixir ps:restart

For hot upgrades, See Hot Upgrades. We are working on adding custom health checks.

Restarts should be zero-downtime. See See How to Set Up Zero-Downtime Deploys.

Maintenance Mode

Maintenance mode keeps your app running, but stops any incoming web traffic. While in maintenance mode, requests to your app receive a 404 response. GET requests will also receive a message about your website undergoing maintenance.

Enable maintenance mode with:

gigalixir maintenance:on

Disable maintenance mode with:

gigalixir maintenance:off