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Getting started

Screenshots are on the way — they land once slice one closes and we can record a real walkthrough. Until then, here’s exactly what happens at each step.

1. Sign up and sign in. DotDeployer uses email/password or Google to sign in — no separate password to manage if you already use Google.
2. Connect DigitalOcean. Paste a DigitalOcean API token scoped to your account. It’s encrypted before it’s stored, and it’s the only thing DotDeployer needs to provision on your behalf.
3. Install the GitHub App. Grant DotDeployer access to the repository you want to deploy — just that repo, not your whole GitHub account.
4. Add a site. Point at the repo, the branch to deploy, and the project path inside it (for a solution with multiple projects).
5. Provision a server. Pick a region and a size. DotDeployer creates the droplet, then bootstraps it: a deploy user, a firewall, unattended security updates, fail2ban, nginx, and the ASP.NET Core runtime your project needs.
6. Set environment variables. Anything your app reads from configuration — connection strings, API keys — goes here, encrypted at rest.
7. Deploy. DotDeployer builds your project on the server and releases it. HTTPS is issued automatically the first time a domain is attached.
8. Watch the log. Every job — provisioning, bootstrapping, deploying — streams its progress to a page you can watch live.
9. Push to deploy. From here on, a push to your branch is a deploy. No pipeline file to write or maintain.
10. Roll back if you need to. Every release stays on the server. If a deploy goes wrong, roll back to the previous one in one click.