Table of Contents
Quick Answer
Use AI to generate your Dockerfile, CI config, and infrastructure-as-code. Then review each file before first deploy, add health checks, and gate production behind a canary or blue-green strategy.
- AI-generated Dockerfiles often lack multi-stage builds — ask explicitly
- CI pipelines work out of the box; infra IaC needs a human architect review
- Never let AI deploy to production without a rollback plan
What You'll Need
- Source repo in Forgejo, GitLab, or GitHub
- Deployment platform (Coolify, Fly.io, Render, Railway)
- AI IDE or CLI
- Secret management (Vault, Doppler, or platform-native)
Steps
- Generate a Dockerfile. Prompt:
Write a multi-stage Dockerfile for a Next.js 15 app using Node 22 Alpine with standalone output. - Generate CI config. For Forgejo:
Write a .forgejo/workflows/deploy.yml that runs tests, builds, and triggers Coolify redeploy. - Add health checks. Ask:
Add a /health route and configure the Dockerfile HEALTHCHECK. - Infrastructure as code. Prompt:
Write Terraform for a Hetzner VPS with Docker and Caddy reverse proxy. - Secrets. Store in platform vault. Never commit
.envfiles. - Deploy to staging first. Every PR merge deploys to staging; promote manually to prod.
- Monitor rollout. Tail logs for 10 minutes post-deploy. Set up Sentry for error tracking.
- Rollback plan. Coolify: one-click rollback. Docker:
docker-compose up -d --scale app=0 && deploy previous tag.
Common Mistakes
- Root user in Docker. AI sometimes forgets
USER node. - Unbounded layers. Skipping
.dockerignorebloats images. - No liveness/readiness split. Kubernetes needs both.
- Deploying on Friday afternoon. No AI fixes that.
Top Tools
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Coolify | Self-hosted PaaS |
| Docker Buildx | Multi-arch builds |
| Terraform | Cloud IaC |
| GitHub Copilot | Inline YAML generation |
| Argo Rollouts | Canary deployment |
Conclusion
AI makes DevOps accessible to application developers. Generate the pipeline, review every file, deploy to staging first, always. Self-host with Coolify on Hetzner for $10-20/mo. See our Coolify setup guide.