Render

Render runs your Node REST API as a long-lived web service with platform-managed TLS, autoscaling, and PR previews. Use the Node adapter and let Render inject PORT.

When to choose Render

You want a Heroku-like UX with modern autoscaling and per-second billing.
You want PR previews wired to your repo without extra CI config.
You want managed Postgres or Redis from the same dashboard.

Server entrypoint

// src/server.ts
import { serve } from "@daloyjs/core/node";
import { app } from "./app.js";

serve(app, {
  port: Number(process.env.PORT ?? 3000),
  hostname: "0.0.0.0",
});

render.yaml

Use runtime: node. The older env: node field is deprecated.

yaml

services:
  - name: my-api
    type: web
    runtime: node
    plan: starter
    buildCommand: pnpm install && pnpm build
    startCommand: node dist/server.js
    healthCheckPath: /healthz
    autoDeploy: true

    scaling:
      minInstances: 1
      maxInstances: 3
      targetCPUPercent: 60

    envVars:
      - key: NODE_ENV
        value: production
      - key: SESSION_SECRET
        sync: false

Deploy

Push to your repo. Render picks up render.yaml automatically. For the first deploy, create a Blueprint service from the dashboard.

Gotchas

Bind to 0.0.0.0, not localhost, or Render can't route traffic to the container.
healthCheckPath must return 2xx within the timeout. Use the lifecycle plugin's health endpoint.

Search docs