Ship Paid App

ship-paid-app — deploy a live app in one command

Session (auto — never dead-stop on auth): before your first settlemesh call, run settlemesh whoami; if it errors and SETTLE_API_KEY is unset, run settlemesh login yourself — it opens the browser for a one-time human approval, polls until approved, and caches the session. Do NOT stop to ask the user to "log in manually" — drive it. Keep an explicit human confirmation only for spending / credential-lending actions (fail-closed).

Every "build an app" skill stops at handing you a folder: you still have to make a GitHub repo, a Vercel/Netlify account, a Supabase project, Stripe keys, and a domain before anyone can use it. SettleMesh collapses that into one command. settlemesh deploy uploads your source, builds it, and returns a live *.run.settlemesh.io URL with SettleMesh login, a managed SQL database, an app-scoped runtime API key, and billing already wired — nothing else to set up.

A prompt-only skill cannot do this: it can't run a database, hold an env file, or keep a process alive. SettleMesh is the backend, the DB, and the deploy target.

Setup (once)

1. npm install -g settlemesh@latest
2. settlemesh login (a human approves once in the browser) — or set SETTLE_API_KEY=sk-settle-... for headless/CI.

Deploy

# Full-stack: live URL + login + managed DB + runtime API key, wait for the build:
settlemesh deploy ./my-app --name my-app --full-stack --wait --json

Read the live URL from the deploy output (this is the #1 point of confusion — it is in the JSON, not guessed). The app is reachable at .run.settlemesh.io automatically; you do not buy or configure a domain.

Common variants (all real flags):

settlemesh deploy . --wait                                   # auto-detect framework, quickest path
settlemesh deploy ./api --framework container --wait         # Python/FastAPI/Django, Go, Node, or a Dockerfile
settlemesh deploy ./app --full-stack --auth required --wait  # gate the whole app behind SettleMesh login
settlemesh deploy ./app --app-id app_123 --full-stack --wait # redeploy onto the SAME app (URL kept)
settlemesh deploy ./mono --context apps/web --name web --wait # one service of a monorepo

Key flags: --full-stack (DB + auth + runtime key + secret injection), --with-database / --database sqlite|postgres, --auth lazy|settlemesh|required|none (full-stack defaults to lazy so pages render first, users log in at /__settle/login), --framework nextjs|container, --app-id (redeploy, keep URL), --prod (promote to prod).

Verify it's live

settlemesh deploy status      # build/deploy state
settlemesh deploy url         # the public URL
settlemesh deploy logs      # build logs if it failed

Notes

• Heavy/compiled containers (Rust/Go/C++): the image builds server-side in Cloud Build; if your Dockerfile compiles and times out, cross-compile locally and ship a thin COPY-only Dockerfile so the build just assembles the image.
• Secrets for container apps: declare NAMES in settlemesh.json under stack.runtime.secrets, pass values with --secret NAME=VALUE or from .env/.env.local — values go out-of-band to Secret Manager, never into the uploaded source.
• To charge your app's end users per use, deploy first, then use the charge-my-users skill (end-user-pays needs the deployed app's runtime key).
• Everything is billed in Aev (1 USD = 100 Aev). Deploy is confirm-gated; check balance with settlemesh aev balance.