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Open Heroku deploy

Deploy-button guide with Heroku Postgres, generated secrets, and required values for the app URL and S3-compatible recording storage.

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Overview

Heroku can deploy Manifest with the repository app.json and heroku.yml. The deploy button creates a Cedar container-stack app, provisions Heroku Postgres, generates Manifest secrets, and builds a tiny Heroku Dockerfile that uses the public Manifest image. Heroku asks for a few values before it can deploy. Set BETTER_AUTH_URL to the public URL for the app name you choose. Heroku dynos have an ephemeral filesystem, so request logs write to external S3-compatible storage rather than local disk: set the bucket, region, and access key for that storage too.

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Prerequisites

  • A Heroku account with billing enabled.
  • Permission to create apps, add-ons, and config vars.
  • A private S3-compatible bucket and an access key limited to it, for request logs.
This stack creates paid resources. Heroku no longer provides free dynos or free Heroku Postgres plans.

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Deploy

  1. Open the Heroku deploy link.
  2. Choose an app name.
  3. Set BETTER_AUTH_URL to:
  1. Fill in the recording storage values: REQUEST_RECORDING_S3_BUCKET, REQUEST_RECORDING_S3_REGION, REQUEST_RECORDING_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID, and REQUEST_RECORDING_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY. Leave REQUEST_RECORDING_S3_ENDPOINT blank only when using AWS S3.
  2. Deploy the app.
Heroku generates BETTER_AUTH_SECRET and MANIFEST_ENCRYPTION_KEY, provisions Postgres as DATABASE_URL, builds Dockerfile.heroku, and starts the web dyno.

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Open Manifest

Open the deployed app and create the first admin account. Fresh installs redirect to /setup; the first account you create becomes the admin. Verify the deployment:
View logs:

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Production notes

  • Heroku sets PORT automatically, so the template does not pin a port.
  • PGSSLMODE=no-verify enables TLS for Heroku Postgres without editing the managed DATABASE_URL.
  • DB_POOL_MAX=8 and AUTH_DB_POOL_MAX=4 leave headroom under the Essential-0 connection limit.
  • Use a custom domain before configuring production OAuth callbacks.
  • Heroku’s filesystem is ephemeral, which is why the deploy collects S3-compatible storage for request logs up front. Recordings live in your bucket, not on the dyno.

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Tearing it down

Destroy the app when testing is done to stop billing:
Relevant Heroku docs: