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Headless Adventures: From CMS to Frontend Without Losing Your Mind (4)

#tooling #devops #docker #frontend

🚀 Dockploy + Headless CMS: Deploying Without Crying Over YAML Files

If you’ve ever tried deploying a frontend connected to a headless CMS and ended up staring at a “502 Bad Gateway” page like it personally insulted you… this post is for you. 💀

🧠 The Mission

You built something beautiful.
Frontend? React or Next.js.
Backend? Headless CMS.
Everything works on localhost. You even high-fived yourself.

Then it’s time to deploy — and suddenly your app behaves like:

“CMS? Never heard of her.” 🤨

💣 The Old Way (a.k.a. The Deployment Pain Olympics)

Before Dockploy, deployment meant juggling:

  • Dockerfiles that kind of work
  • CI/CD pipelines that fail silently
  • YAML files that look like alien poetry
  • Servers that say “connection refused” at 3AM

You’d spend hours fixing environment variables until you start questioning your career choices.

🌤️ Enter Dockploy: The “Peaceful Deployment” Tool

Dockploy is that rare friend who says,

“Hey, let’s deploy your app without emotional damage.”

It’s simple:

  1. Connect your repo
  2. Choose your build command
  3. Link your environment variables
  4. Click Deploy

That’s it. You’re live before your coffee gets cold. ☕

🧩 Step 1: Set Your Environment Variables

Your CMS URL, API key, and frontend endpoint are best friends — until one of them goes missing.

In Dockploy:

  • Go to Environment Variables
  • Add keys like: 
  NEXT_PUBLIC_CMS_URL=https://cms.example.com
  CMS_TOKEN=super-secret-token
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  • Hit save

Pro tip: Never hardcode secrets, unless you enjoy being hacked by future-you. 🔒

🧱 Step 2: Configure Your Build

Dockploy detects your stack automatically (Next.js, Astro, Remix — whatever you fancy).
But just to be safe:

# Build
pnpm build

# Start (if needed)
pnpm start
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And if your CMS API runs on another server, make sure it’s reachable — nothing says “oops” like a 404 from your backend.

🛰️ Step 3: Connect Frontend + CMS Smoothly

If your CMS (like Strapi or Directus) runs on another Dockploy app:

  • Use internal URLs or Docker network aliases
  • Example: 
  NEXT_PUBLIC_CMS_URL=http://cms:1337
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Instead of localhost or some random IP that only your cat understands. 🐱

Now your frontend and backend are besties again.

🧙 Step 4: Add Automatic Redeploys (Because You Deserve It)

Nothing feels better than pushing to main and seeing Dockploy say:

“Got it, boss. Redeploying automatically.”

You can link GitHub → Dockploy and set up automatic deploys for every push.

It’s basically like CI/CD, but without 3,000 YAML lines. 🪄

🔥 Step 5: Debug Without Tears

If something breaks (it will), Dockploy logs are your best friend:

  • Go to Logs
  • You’ll instantly see which env var you forgot, or which import you misspelled
  • Fix → push → redeploy → brag

🎉 Step 6: Celebrate and Pretend It Was Easy

Now that your CMS and frontend are deployed and talking nicely,
you can act cool in your dev chat:

“Yeah, just deployed to Dockploy. Zero config. Smooth.” 😎

(You totally forgot to add the .env file on your first try, but no one needs to know.)

🧘‍♂️ TL;DR

  1. Set your env vars — don’t hardcode secrets.
  2. Let Dockploy auto-detect your build setup.
  3. Use internal URLs if your CMS and frontend live together.
  4. Enable automatic redeploys — future-you will love it.
  5. Celebrate like you didn’t just Google “docker network alias” 6 times.

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