Apps

A Kortix App is a provider-neutral serverless deployment owned by one project. An App owns one stable URL. Each deployment is immutable and numbered. A failed deployment never replaces live traffic.

Apps is a feature flag. Its stability is stable, and it is off by default. Turn it on per project before you deploy.

Building on Apps from TypeScript? See SDK → Apps for the client surface and the React hooks.

Turn Apps on

Open Settings → Experimental and switch Apps on for the project. You need project.customize.write.

While the flag is off:

• Every Apps route answers 403 with { error, code: "feature_disabled", feature: "apps" }.
• kortix apps <subcommand> prints the same sentence and exits 1.
• The Apps entry does not appear in the project sidebar. Opening /projects/<id>/apps directly shows a gate screen that links to the flag. The page itself never enables the feature.

Source kinds

All four source kinds run on the same Kortix sandbox hosting backend. Kortix selects Daytona, Platinum, or E2B. They therefore share one deployment contract and one cold-wake contract.

Pick the fastest path for the result you want:

• Build Vite locally and deploy dist/ as static for the lowest latency.
• Deploy the package source as bundle when Kortix must run the install and build.
• Export Next.js with output: 'export' and deploy out/ as static when the App needs no server runtime.
• Deploy server-rendered Next.js and arbitrary services as dockerfile, with an explicit command and port.
• Deploy an existing public image as oci_image, with an explicit command and port.

dockerfile and oci_image require --command and --port. static and bundle do not.

Deploy from the CLI

kortix apps deploy .

deploy creates the App on first use, registers an immutable artifact — uploading a .tar.gz for a path, or recording the reference for --image — builds it, and blocks until the stable URL is ready. The wait budget is --wait-seconds, default 1200. Use --no-wait only when another process owns status tracking.

kortix apps deploy dist --slug docs --access project
kortix apps deploy . --type dockerfile --command '["node","server.js"]' --port 3000
kortix apps deploy --image ghcr.io/acme/service:2026-08-07 --command '["node","server.js"]' --port 3000

The full subcommand list:

--project, --host, and --json work on every subcommand.

Deployment defaults from kortix.yaml

An apps.<name> block holds local deploy defaults. The server stays the App control plane: the block never carries access, passwords, or member ids.

apps:
  docs:
    path: docs/dist
    type: static
    spa: true
    readiness_path: /
    idle_timeout_seconds: 300
    monthly_budget_usd: 5
    resources:
      cpu: 1
      memory_gb: 2
      disk_gb: 10
    env:
      PUBLIC_BASE: https://kortix.com
    secrets:
      API_TOKEN: docs_api_token

Select the block with kortix apps deploy --manifest-app docs. An explicit flag always wins over the block.

Machine, idle timeout, and budget

Apps reject a machine larger than the limits instead of clamping it. An App records its requested spec and bills off that record, so a silent downgrade would charge for compute the provider never gave. An out-of-range value answers 400 with code: "app_machine_out_of_range" or "app_budget_out_of_range".

Creating an App past the account's App quota answers 402 with code: "app_quota_exceeded". A duplicate slug in the same project answers 409.

The stable URL

Kortix assigns the hostname when the App is created and never changes it. On Kortix cloud it is <env>-<slug>-<route-key>.apps.kortix.com. Self-hosted deployments serve their own wildcard domain from KORTIX_APPS_BASE_DOMAIN.

An authorized request to a suspended App resumes its sandbox, waits for readiness, and proxies that same request. You do not have to wake it first.

While the App is waiting for its first deployment, queued, validating, building, provisioning, checking, activating, or starting:

• A browser navigation gets a branded status page, HTTP 202, retry-after: 3, and a 3-second meta refresh.
• A machine client gets 202 and JSON — for a cold start, { code: "app_starting" } with retry-after: 3.

Terminal and paused states answer differently:

kortix apps stop suspends compute immediately; the next authorized request resumes the App. kortix apps start warms it before traffic arrives.

Access modes

An App's access mode is a per-resource visibility setting on top of the role model, not a role. It decides who can open this one App. It grants no permission the role verdict denies. See Accounts & access.

New Apps are private. Choose one mode:

Set it at deploy time or afterwards:

kortix apps deploy . --access restricted --members m1,m2 --groups g1
kortix apps access docs --mode password --password 's3cret'
kortix apps access-link docs --json

Kortix access uses a five-minute exchange URL and an eight-hour, host-only, secure cookie. access-link mints that exchange URL without changing the policy — treat it as a secret.

Changing an access policy increments its revision, which revokes every existing App cookie. Passwords are Argon2id hashes; the API, the CLI, and the SDK never return a password or its hash.

Being able to see an App listed and being able to open it are different verdicts. A project manager sees every App in the project, so a private App stays manageable when its creator leaves. An account owner and an account admin hold manager-equivalent access on every project, so the same applies to them. The App record reports viewer_can_access for the second question.

Versions and rollback

Each deployment gets the next version number for its App and is immutable. The deployment record keeps its source kind, hosting provider, build and runtime spec, attempt count, and error code.

Every deployment also records who made it: created_by, actor_type (human, agent, service_account, or system), and the originating source_session_id when an agent deployed it.

Move traffic back to any ready deployment:

kortix apps rollback docs <deployment-id>

Rollback starts the target deployment's runtime first, then stops the previous one. A target that fails to start leaves the current deployment serving.

Each cold start compares the active deployment's runtime version against the current Kortix App runtime. The old deployment keeps serving while Kortix asynchronously builds one immutable replacement with the latest kortix-appd and Caddy binaries. A PostgreSQL advisory lock prevents duplicate refreshes.

The Apps page

Once the flag is on, an Apps row appears in the project sidebar, under Customize. The page is operational, not a creation surface: it lists the project's Apps with live state, a signed preview of each running App, and the access controls. Deploying is kortix apps deploy ..

An App with no active deployment reads Not deployed, never Running. A suspended App's preview issues the request that wakes it.

Kortix opens *.apps.kortix.com and *.apps.localhost on their direct origin rather than through a session's web forward proxy. That preserves the host-only access cookie and removes one network hop.