coolify

# Coolify — own-the-box PaaS on your VPS Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable control plane that turns a plain Linux VPS into a Vercel/Heroku replacement: Git-to-deploy, managed databases, automatic SSL, scheduled backups — for a flat VPS bill instead of per-request metering. This skill is operational. It produces the exact install one-liner, the port matrix, env wiring, a lint-clean compose artifact, and a backup-to-S3 cron with a tested restore. Coolify 4.x (stable in 2026); v4.1 added Railpack, structured audit logging, and a read-only MCP server. ## Mental model — read this first 1. **Coolify is the control plane, not the box.** It runs *on* a VPS you provisioned elsewhere. Hardware sizing, the cloud firewall, SSH hardening, OS patching → that is the VPS layer (hetzner / digitalocean), not this skill. Coolify orchestrates what runs on the box. 2. **You own the data and the uptime now.** No vendor takes nightly snapshots for you. So backups are non-optional and a backup you have never restored is not a backup (see the backup section). 3. **Everything underneath is Docker.** Coolify generates compose/Dockerfile runs and a Traefik proxy. So every Docker rule still applies — named volumes, healthchecks, pinned images, env-injected secrets. For image-authoring depth (multi-stage, layer caching) go to the `docker` skill; here we wire it. 4. **First account to register owns the instance — forever.** There is no "admin invite" recovery if a stranger regis...