agnes-the-ai-analyst/docs/DEPLOYMENT.md

Deployment Guide

Agnes supports two deployment paths. Pick the one that matches your use case.

1. Terraform — managed, multi-customer (recommended)

For Keboola-operated deployments and anyone running Agnes for multiple customers on GCP.

Follow: ONBOARDING.md

Highlights:

• Per-customer GCP project + private infra repo cloned from keboola/agnes-infra-template
• Reusable Terraform module infra/modules/customer-instance (versioned — infra-vX.Y.Z tags)
• Prod + optional branch-aware dev VMs
• Persistent SSD data disk with daily snapshots
• Secret Manager for tokens (no plaintext in VM metadata)
• OS Login for SSH, dedicated VM service account with scoped secretAccessor
• Cron-based auto-upgrade (pulls :stable image digest every 5 min)
• Caddy TLS with corporate-CA or self-managed certs mounted from /data/state/certs; daily auto-rotation from a URL (TLS_FULLCHAIN_URL) with zero-downtime SIGUSR1 reload
• Uptime check + alert policy per VM (wire a notification channel to be paged)
• CI/CD in the private repo: PR → terraform plan, merge to main → apply-dev auto, apply-prod gated by reviewer
• First-boot bootstrap via POST /auth/bootstrap

Target onboarding time: < 1 hour per customer.

2. Docker Compose — OSS self-host

For running Agnes on your own VM / bare metal without Terraform. You're responsible for provisioning and maintenance.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 24.04 (or any Linux with Docker)
• 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 30 GB SSD minimum
• Docker Engine + Compose plugin
• Public IP with ports 80/443 (if using Caddy TLS) or 8000 (plain HTTP) open
• Data-source credentials (e.g., Keboola Storage token)

Steps

1. Clone the Agnes repository:

   git clone https://github.com/keboola/agnes-the-ai-analyst.git /opt/agnes
   cd /opt/agnes
   

2. Create .env:

   cat > .env <<'EOF'
   JWT_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
   DATA_DIR=/data
   DATA_SOURCE=keboola
   KEBOOLA_STORAGE_TOKEN=<your-token>
   KEBOOLA_STACK_URL=<your-stack-url>
   SEED_ADMIN_EMAIL=<your-email>
   LOG_LEVEL=info
   AGNES_TAG=stable
   EOF
   chmod 600 .env
   

3. Mount a persistent disk at /data (optional but recommended — survives host rebuild). If you do, use the overlay:

   docker compose \
       -f docker-compose.yml \
       -f docker-compose.prod.yml \
       -f docker-compose.host-mount.yml \
       up -d
   

   Without a persistent disk (data on Docker named volume, tied to boot disk):

   docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d
   

4. Bootstrap your admin password via POST /auth/bootstrap:

   curl -X POST http://<host>:8000/auth/bootstrap \
       -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
       -d '{"email":"<your-email>","password":"<strong-password>"}'
   

5. Open http://<host>:8000/login and sign in.

TLS (optional)

Caddy runs as the TLS terminator. It reads certs from /data/state/certs/{fullchain,privkey}.pem bind-mounted into the container. Two provisioning modes:

A. Public internet (Let's Encrypt) — for this path, override the Caddyfile to drop the tls directive (so Caddy auto-issues) and skip steps below. Not covered here anymore; see git history prior to the feat(tls) change if you need the ACME flow.

B. Corporate CA / self-managed certs (recommended, and what the infra repo ships):

Two bring-up flows, picked by whether TLS_PRIVKEY_URL is set in .env:

• On-VM gen (preferred for new deployments): leave TLS_PRIVKEY_URL empty. On first run, agnes-tls-rotate.sh generates an RSA-2048 key + CSR directly into /data/state/certs/ using the subject string from TLS_CSR_SUBJECT. The key never leaves the host; the CSR (/data/state/certs/cert.csr) is what you submit to your corporate PKI. Until the CA signs and publishes, rotate falls back to a 30-day self-signed cert against the same key so Caddy can serve :443.
• Pre-provisioned key (legacy / VM-replace-resilient): set TLS_PRIVKEY_URL=sm://<secret> (or any supported scheme). Seed the key out-of-band before first rotate. Same real-cert fetch + self-signed fallback applies.

Both modes converge: once the CA publishes the signed chain at TLS_FULLCHAIN_URL, the daily rotate tick atomically swaps the fullchain in place and SIGUSR1-reloads Caddy. Zero key churn, zero downtime, no reload when the URL content hasn't moved.

1. Set the required env vars in .env:

   DOMAIN=agnes.example.com
   TLS_FULLCHAIN_URL=https://your-ca.example.com/agnes/fullchain.pem
   TLS_PRIVKEY_URL=            # empty → on-VM gen; or sm://<secret>
   TLS_CSR_SUBJECT=/C=…/ST=…/L=…/O=…/CN=agnes.example.com
   

2. Start with the tls profile + overlay (docker-compose.tls.yml closes host :8000 so all traffic enters via :443):

   docker compose \
       -f docker-compose.yml \
       -f docker-compose.prod.yml \
       -f docker-compose.tls.yml \
       --profile tls up -d
   

3. Grab the CSR if you used on-VM gen:

   sudo cat /data/state/certs/cert.csr
   

   Submit to your corporate PKI. While waiting, Caddy is already up on :443 with the self-signed fallback.

Automatic rotation

scripts/grpn/agnes-tls-rotate.sh is the single entry point — it handles fetch, self-signed fallback, auto-generation on missing key, atomic cert swap, and Caddy reload. Env vars it reads:

Var	Required	Schemes	Notes
DOMAIN	yes	—	The hostname Caddy serves + the CN in auto-generated CSRs.
TLS_FULLCHAIN_URL	yes	https://, sm://<secret>, gs://<obj>, file://	Polled daily; rotate only reloads Caddy when the bytes change.
TLS_PRIVKEY_URL	optional	same	Empty activates on-VM gen. Set to pre-provisioned scheme (e.g. sm://) for VM-replace resilience.
TLS_CSR_SUBJECT	optional	—	Stamped on auto-generated CSRs. Defaults to /CN=<DOMAIN> if unset. Example: /C=US/ST=Illinois/L=Chicago/O=Your Org/CN=agnes.example.com.

scripts/tls-fetch.sh at /usr/local/bin/tls-fetch.sh is required (generic URL fetcher used by rotate). On infra-repo-managed VMs, both scripts are installed by startup.sh and fired via a daily systemd timer; for manual compose deployments, copy them under /usr/local/bin/ and wire a systemd timer (OnBootSec=10min, OnUnitActiveSec=24h, Persistent=true).

Upgrades (manual)

cd /opt/agnes
git pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Or set up a cron job — see infra/modules/customer-instance/startup-script.sh.tpl for the reference implementation.

Which path should I pick?

	Terraform	Docker Compose
Setup time	~45 min first customer, ~15 min each subsequent	~30 min
Infra-as-Code	Full (all resources in git)	Partial (compose.yml only)
Secret storage	GCP Secret Manager	.env file on host
Upgrades	Auto via cron, gated prod apply	Manual docker compose pull
Backups	Daily GCP snapshots, 30-day retention	You set up yourself
Monitoring / alerts	GCP Uptime Checks + alert policy	You set up yourself
TLS	Caddy + corp cert, auto-rotated from URL	Caddy + corp cert, manual or user-scripted rotation
Best for	Multi-tenant SaaS, production	Single-instance self-host, learning

Related documentation

• ONBOARDING.md — end-to-end Terraform onboarding checklist
• CONFIGURATION.md — instance.yaml, env vars, per-instance config
• architecture.md — internal architecture (orchestrator, extractors, DB layout)
• QUICKSTART.md — local development setup
• superpowers/specs/2026-04-21-multi-customer-deployment-spec.md — design rationale for the multi-customer model