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Deploying on Heroku

This is a guide for deploying a Medusa project on Heroku. Heroku is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) that allows you to easily deploy your applications in the cloud.

note

We assume, that you are currently running a local instance of Medusa. If not, check out our Quickstart or use npx create-medusa-app to set up your application in a matter of minutes. For the latter, see this guide for a small walkthrough.

1. Install the Heroku CLI​

Install Heroku on your machine:

Ubuntu

sudo snap install --classic heroku

MacOS

brew tap heroku/brew && brew install heroku

Windows

Download the appropriate installer for your Windows installation:

64-bit installer 32-bit installer

2. Login to Heroku from your CLI​

Connect to your Heroku account from your terminal:

heroku login
note

Follow the instructions on your terminal

3. Create an app on Heroku​

In your Medusa project directory, run the following commands to create an app on Heroku and add it as a remote origin.

heroku create medusa-test-app
heroku git:remote -a medusa-test-app

4. Install Postgresql and Redis on Heroku​

Medusa requires a Postgres database and a Redis instance to work. These are added through the Heroku CLI using the following commands.

tip

In this example below, we initialize the resources on free plans. This is not a valid configuration for a production environment.

Postgresql​

Add a Postgres add-on to your Heroku app

heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev

You can find more informations, plans and pricing about Heroku Postgres here.

Redis To Go​

Add a Redis instance to your Heroku app

note

The add-on redistogo:nano is free, but Heroku requires you to add a payment method to proceed.

heroku addons:create redistogo:nano

You can find more informations, plans and pricing about Redis To Go here.

5. Configure environment variables on Heroku​

Medusa requires a set of environment variables. From you project repository, run the following commands:.

heroku config:set NODE_ENV=production
heroku config:set JWT_SECRET=your-super-secret
heroku config:set COOKIE_SECRET=your-super-secret-pt2
heroku config:set NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION=false
tip

Make sure to use actual secrets in a production environment.

Additionally, we need to set the buildpack to Node.js

heroku buildpacks:set heroku/nodejs

Configure the Redis URL​

The library we use for connecting to Redis, does not allow usernames in the connection string. Therefore, we need to perform the following commands to remove it. Get the current Redis URL:

heroku config:get REDISTOGO_URL

You should get something like:

redis://redistogo:some_password_123@some.redistogo.com:9660/

Remove the username from the Redis URL:

redis://r̶e̶d̶i̶s̶t̶o̶g̶o̶:some_password_123@sole.redistogo.com:9660/

Set the new environment variable REDIS_URL

heroku config:set REDIS_URL=redis://:some_password_123@sole.redistogo.com:9660/

6. Configure Medusa​

Before jumping into the deployment, we need to configure Medusa.

medusa-config.js​

Update module.exports to include the following:

module.exports = {
  projectConfig: {
    redis_url: REDIS_URL,
    database_url: DATABASE_URL,
    database_type: "postgres",
    store_cors: STORE_CORS,
    admin_cors: ADMIN_CORS,
    database_extra:
      process.env.NODE_ENV !== "development"
        ? { ssl: { rejectUnauthorized: false } }
        : {},
  },
  plugins,
};

package.json​

Update scripts to include the following:

...
"scripts": {
    "serve": "medusa start",
    "start": "medusa develop",
    "heroku-postbuild": "medusa migrations run",
    "prepare": "npm run build",
    "build": "babel src -d dist --extensions \".ts,.js\""
},
...

6. Launch your Medusa app​

Finally, we need to commit and push our changes to Heroku:

git add .
git commit -m "Deploy Medusa App on Heroku"
git push heroku HEAD:master

7. Inspect your build logs​

You can explore your Heroku app build logs using the following command in your project directory.

heroku logs -n 500000 --remote heroku --tail

8. Create a user (optional)​

As an optional extra step, we can create a user for you to use when your admin system is up and running.

heroku run -a medusa-test-app -- medusa user -e "some-user@test.com" -p "SuperSecret1234"

What's next?​

You now have a production ready application running on Heroku. This can be scaled and configured to fit your business needs.

Furthermore, you can deploy a Medusa Admin for your application, such that you can start managing your store from an interface.