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HQ Deploy Platform

Part of the split HQ ecosystem. HQ Deploy is the hq-deploy data plane; deployments are visible in the hq-console admin UI, and it trusts the shared identity provisioned by hq-pro.

HQ Deploy is a platform-as-a-service built on AWS that lets you deploy web applications with a single CLI command. It supports both static sites (S3 + CloudFront) and server-rendered apps (ECS Fargate + ALB).

How It Works

Developer                    Control Plane                  AWS Data Plane
─────────                    ─────────────                  ──────────────
hq-deploy deploy ──────────► POST /api/apps/:id/deploy
                              │
                              ├─ Static? ──► S3 upload + CloudFront invalidation
                              │
                              └─ SSR? ────► Docker build + ECR push + ECS rolling deploy
                                                              │
                                                              ▼
                                                    {app}.indigo-hq.com ◄── Lambda@Edge routing
  1. You run hq-deploy deploy — the CLI detects your framework (Next.js, Remix, Astro, Vite, etc.), builds your project, and uploads the output.
  2. The control plane processes the deploy — creates an app record, provisions DNS, and routes the build artifact to the right infrastructure.
  3. Lambda@Edge handles routing — inspects the Host header, looks up the app in DynamoDB, and routes to either S3 (static) or ALB (SSR).

Key Features

  • Framework detection — Automatically identifies Next.js, Remix, Astro, Vite, and plain static sites.
  • Dual auth — Use platform API keys for simplicity, or AWS SSO for enterprise environments.
  • Multi-tenant — Each org gets isolated resources. Cross-tenant access is impossible at the query level.
  • Enterprise self-hosting — Provision the full stack in a customer’s AWS account via CloudFormation.
  • Zero-downtime SSR deploys — ECS rolling updates with minimumHealthyPercent=100.
  • Upgrade management — ChangeSet previews with dry-run mode for enterprise stack updates.
  • In-context comments — Viewers leave feedback directly on a gated deploy, anchored to a point or a region and tagged to their identity, behind the same access gate as the deploy.

Projects That Built This

The deploy platform was constructed across 15 sequential projects, each building on the last:

  1. Repo scaffold — TypeScript strict mode, ESLint, directory structure
  2. Domain hosting — Route 53, ACM cert, S3 bucket, CloudFront
  3. DB + API scaffold — Aurora/Neon Postgres, Drizzle ORM, Hono server
  4. Dual auth — Clerk JWT, API keys, AWS SigV4
  5. App DNS API — App registration, subdomain generation, CNAME management
  6. Static flow — Upload, extract, S3 sync, cache invalidation
  7. SSR infra — ECS cluster, ECR, ALB, Lambda@Edge routing
  8. SSR flow — Docker build, ECR push, ECS rolling deploy
  9. CLI — Framework detection, deploy command, login flow
  10. E2E tests — Staging infra, integration test suite
  11. Multi-tenant — Org model, context middleware, scoped queries
  12. Enterprise init — AWS credential resolution, CloudFormation deployment
  13. CloudFormation template — Parameterized IaC for customer accounts
  14. AWS SSO auth — Profile resolution, account-to-org matching
  15. Upgrade flow — Version drift detection, ChangeSet preview