Pystrano

Quickstart

The shortest realistic path to trying Pystrano with a Django or FastAPI deployment workflow.

Pystrano assumes you already have SSH access to your server and know where your app should be deployed.

Install Pystrano

Pystrano is published on PyPI and currently requires Python 3.12 or newer.

pip install pystrano

Create a deployment config

By default, Pystrano reads a YAML file from this path:

deploy/<app_name>/<environment_name>/deployment.yml

For an app named api and an environment named production, generate:

deploy/api/production/deployment.yml

The init flow prompts for Django or FastAPI, package manager, repository, server, and systemd details. It also writes a starter gunicorn.service or uvicorn.service file referenced by the generated config.

pystrano init production api

pystrano configure production api is accepted as an alias. Use --deploy-config-dir and --config-file-name when your deployment files live outside the default path.

Configure SSH and server access

The setup command connects as root. The deploy command connects as the configured project_user. Make sure your local SSH keys, remote access, Git host access, and any referenced local files are ready before running live commands.

Preview setup

Use --dry-run first to print commands without executing them.

pystrano setup production api --dry-run

Run setup

Setup creates the deploy user, copies authorized SSH keys, prepares directories, installs packages, creates the virtualenv, updates known hosts, installs uv when configured, and optionally registers a systemd service and uploads secret files.

pystrano setup production api

Deploy

Preview the deploy first, then run it when the output matches your expectations.

pystrano deploy production api --dry-run
pystrano deploy production api

Choose the framework path

For Django, Pystrano can run manage.py migrate and manage.py collectstatic --noinput. For FastAPI, migrations default to Alembic and can be customized with migration_command; static asset work requires static_files_command when enabled.

Roll back

Pystrano does not currently expose a rollback CLI command. Deployments use timestamped release directories and a current symlink, so rollback is a manual server recovery procedure today. See the rollback guide before relying on this in production.

Next steps

Read the Django or FastAPI VPS guide for a complete deployment flow, then review the configuration and secrets pages before using Pystrano with sensitive production systems.