Templates & Compose

Besides a single image or a Git repository, the deploy wizard has two more sources: a Template for common services, and Docker Compose, which turns a Compose file’s services into apps. Both show what Kwerft will create and create nothing until you confirm.

You need the developer role (or owner or admin) in the project. Open Apps, click Deploy app, and choose the Source.

Templates

Template offers ready-made setups. Each starts with pinned images, gets disks and generated passwords, and keeps its secrets in a secret set that other apps can use.

1. Pick a template.
2. Fill in its Settings: the App name (also its hostname inside the project and the name of its secret set), disk sizes and classes, and, depending on the template, a size, a hostname, or Apps that may connect (api, or shop/api for another project). n8n and Plausible need a Hostname, which needs DNS pointing at the server or an apps domain.
3. Review lists what Kwerft will create, with the public URLs, and the template’s notes on what to do next.
4. Click Create <template>.

The apps start with generated values already in place. Database templates keep their data on a disk of their own (Local NVMe by default, which cannot grow later; a Hetzner Cloud Volume can). n8n and Plausible start without a health check, because their first start runs migrations that take longer than a check would wait.

To connect your own app to a template’s database, pick the template’s set and key (for example postgres · DATABASE_URL) as the variable’s Source in your app’s Settings › Environment, and allow your app under the database’s Who may connect to this app inside the cluster?, unless you named it in Apps that may connect.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose turns a Compose file into apps: each service becomes an app, named volumes become volumes.

1. Paste the file, or Upload… one (up to 256 KiB).
2. If the file uses ${VAR} references, give their values under Values for ${VAR} references (KEY=value, like a .env file). They are used only to fill in the file.
3. Click Check. Kwerft converts the file and checks every object as you, without creating anything.
4. The review shows Kwerft will create (apps, volumes and secret sets in the order they are created, with public URLs), names it had to change under Renamed to valid names, warnings per service, and any problems that block the import.
5. Click Create N apps.

Everything is created in one go. If any step fails, what was already created is removed again, so a failed import leaves nothing behind.

What is converted

Variable interpolation, YAML anchors and merges work. Outbound access stays Kwerft’s default (HTTPS to the internet), not Compose’s unrestricted network.

Without an apps domain, nothing gets a public hostname; the review warns once per service. Add hostnames later under the app’s Settings › Ports.

Not supported

These keys are reported as warnings and left out: depends_on, privileged, cap_add, devices, network_mode, user, working_dir, secrets and configs, env_file, links, extends, restart: "no", include, volume drivers, bind mounts, tmpfs and anonymous volumes. A service with profiles is skipped.

Apps in Kwerft start in no particular order, so a service that needs its database must retry until it answers.

x-kwerft

An x-kwerft block adds Kwerft-specific settings:

services:
  web:
    image: ghcr.io/acme/web:1.4.2
    ports: ["8080:3000"]
    x-kwerft:
      size: medium           # small, medium or large
      egress: all            # none, https or all
      public: shop.example.com   # a hostname, or false to keep it inside
volumes:
  db-data:
    x-kwerft:
      size: 20Gi
      class: hcloud-volume   # or local-nvme

Limits

• Templates come from a fixed catalog of five; you cannot add your own yet.
• Templates and imports create apps without a health check where a slow first start would trip it.
• The Compose import covers the parts of Compose that map onto apps; the review says what it left out.