acodeaday

Appearance

Deploy to Coolify ​

Coolify is a self-hostable PaaS that makes deploying Docker applications easy. This guide covers deploying acodeaday to Coolify.

Prerequisites ​

  • A Coolify instance (self-hosted or cloud)
  • A VPS with at least 2 CPU cores and 4GB RAM
  • A domain name (optional but recommended)
  • Supabase account for auth and database

Deployment Methods ​

Deploy using the production compose file with pre-built images.

Step 1: Create a New Project ​

  1. In Coolify, go to Projects → New Project
  2. Name it acodeaday

Step 2: Add Docker Compose Resource ​

  1. Click + New → Docker Compose
  2. Choose Empty Docker Compose
  3. Paste the contents of docker-compose.prod.yml from the repo

Step 3: Configure Environment Variables ​

In the Coolify UI, add these environment variables:

Required:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql+asyncpg://postgres.[ref]:[password]@aws-0-[region].pooler.supabase.com:6543/postgres
SUPABASE_URL=https://[your-project].supabase.co
SUPABASE_KEY=[your-anon-key]
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=[your-service-role-key]
VITE_SUPABASE_URL=https://[your-project].supabase.co
VITE_SUPABASE_KEY=[your-anon-key]

Service Role Key

The SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY enables auto-confirmation of the default user's email. Without it, you'll need to manually confirm the user in Supabase Dashboard → Authentication → Users.

For path-based routing (recommended):

VITE_API_URL=/api

Optional (for AI chat):

GOOGLE_API_KEY=...
OPENAI_API_KEY=...
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...

Step 4: Configure Domain Routing ​

Recommended: Path-based routing (single domain)

Configure Coolify/Caddy to route:

  • yourdomain.com/ → frontend container (port 3000)
  • yourdomain.com/api/ → backend container (port 8000)

With this setup, set VITE_API_URL=/api (relative URL).

Alternative: Separate domains

  • app.yourdomain.com → frontend
  • api.yourdomain.com → backend

Set VITE_API_URL=https://api.yourdomain.com

Step 5: Enable Privileged Mode for Judge0 ​

Judge0 requires privileged mode. In Coolify:

  1. Go to the Judge0 server container settings
  2. Enable Privileged Mode
  3. Do the same for Judge0 workers

WARNING

Privileged mode is required for Judge0's sandboxed code execution. Without it, code submissions will fail.

Step 6: Deploy ​

Click Deploy and wait for all services to start. The backend will automatically:

  • Run database migrations
  • Seed the problem database

Method 2: GitHub Repository ​

Let Coolify build from source.

Step 1: Connect GitHub ​

  1. In Coolify, go to Sources → Add GitHub App
  2. Authorize Coolify to access your repo

Step 2: Create Services ​

Add each service separately:

Frontend:

  1. + New → Public Repository or Private Repository
  2. Enter: https://github.com/engineeringwithtemi/acodeaday
  3. Set Build Pack: Docker
  4. Set Dockerfile Location: frontend/Dockerfile
  5. Set Docker Context: frontend

Backend:

  1. Same process, but:
    • Dockerfile Location: backend/Dockerfile
    • Docker Context: backend

Judge0 Stack:

  1. Add as Docker Compose
  2. Include only Judge0 services from docker-compose.yml

Step 3: Configure Networking ​

Ensure all services are on the same Docker network so they can communicate.

Step 4: Set Environment Variables ​

Same as Method 1.

Health Checks ​

The services include health checks:

Backend:

yaml
healthcheck:
  test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:8000/health"]
  interval: 30s
  timeout: 10s
  start_period: 60s
  retries: 3

Frontend:

yaml
healthcheck:
  test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:3000"]
  interval: 30s
  timeout: 10s
  start_period: 30s
  retries: 3

Coolify will use these to determine when services are ready.

Troubleshooting ​

Judge0 fails to start ​

Problem: Judge0 requires privileged mode.

Solution: Enable privileged mode in Coolify container settings.

Frontend can't reach backend ​

Problem: VITE_API_URL is incorrect.

Solution:

  • Path-based routing: Set VITE_API_URL=/api
  • Separate domains: Set VITE_API_URL=https://api.yourdomain.com

Database connection timeout ​

Problem: Supabase connection pooler timeout or connection errors.

Solution: You must use the Transaction pooler URL (port 6543), not direct connection (port 5432):

bash
# ✅ Correct - Transaction pooler (port 6543)
postgresql+asyncpg://postgres.[ref]:[password]@aws-0-[region].pooler.supabase.com:6543/postgres

# ❌ Wrong - Direct connection (port 5432)
postgresql+asyncpg://postgres.[ref]:[password]@aws-0-[region].pooler.supabase.com:5432/postgres

To get the correct connection string:

  1. Supabase Dashboard → Settings → Database
  2. Under Connection string, select URI
  3. Choose Transaction pooler (port 6543)
  4. Replace postgresql:// with postgresql+asyncpg://

Migrations not running ​

Problem: Database tables don't exist.

Solution: The backend runs migrations automatically on startup. Check container logs:

bash
docker logs acodeaday-backend

If migrations failed, you can run them manually:

bash
docker exec acodeaday-backend alembic upgrade head
docker exec acodeaday-backend python scripts/seed_problems.py seed

Browser showing old API URLs after config change ​

Problem: After changing VITE_API_URL or other environment variables, the browser still makes requests to the old URL.

Cause: Browser caches the compiled JavaScript files. Even though the container replaces environment variables at startup, browsers may serve cached versions.

Solution:

  1. Hard refresh the page: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac)
  2. If that doesn't work, clear browser cache:
    • Chrome: Settings → Privacy → Clear browsing data → Cached images and files
    • Or open DevTools (F12) → Network tab → Check "Disable cache" → Refresh
  3. Log out and log back in - This forces a fresh page load
  4. Try incognito/private mode to verify the fix works with a clean cache

For Production

After changing environment variables in Coolify:

  1. Redeploy the frontend service
  2. Ask users to hard refresh if they experience issues

SSL/HTTPS issues ​

Problem: Mixed content errors.

Solution: Ensure all URLs use HTTPS:

  • VITE_API_URL=https://api.yourdomain.com (not http)
  • VITE_SUPABASE_URL=https://[project].supabase.co

Updates ​

To update to a new version:

  1. Pull latest images: docker compose pull
  2. Restart services: docker compose up -d

Or in Coolify, click Redeploy.

Next Steps ​