What Stardeck Runs for You
What's in your app's repository, which services Stardeck runs behind it, and how you build, deploy and operate it with your own coding agent.
A Stardeck app is a Next.js repository you can read and change, plus services Stardeck runs behind it. You and your coding agent write the business logic. Stardeck runs the hosting, the database, sign-in, payments, messaging and monitoring, and ships updates to the code it gave you.
In your repository
- The app. A Next.js 16 App Router project that Stardeck builds and hosts. See Building on Graviton for what differs from plain Next.js.
- What it started from. Every app starts from the same foundation, with
Modules (booking, payments, POS and so on) in
apps/web/src/modules/as source you can read. - The SDKs. One npm package per platform service, each with its full API reference in a
SKILL.mdyour agent reads. See The SDKs. - Tests. Workflow tests run with
npm testagainst an isolated database, with simulated email, payments and sign-in. See Testing. - Guidance for your agent.
AGENTS.mdat the root explains the app's structure and rules to any coding agent.
LICENSE.md in the repository says which code is Stardeck's and which is yours.
What Stardeck runs
| Service | What you get | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting and deploys | Production at <app>.stardeck.site or your own domain, preview deploys, 24-hour stagings on a copy of production's data | Deploy, Staging, Custom Domains |
| Data stores | Databases and file storage, branches you can route to each environment, snapshots and point-in-time restore | Data Stores, History & Rewind |
| Sign-in and roles | Accounts, sessions, sign-up rules and permissions for the people who use your app | User Authentication |
| Payments | Beam Checkout and Stripe Connect with no API keys in your code | Payments |
| Messaging | Transactional email, LINE, Slack and Google Calendar, with Stardeck holding the credentials | Email, Connected Services |
| Scheduled jobs | Recurring jobs with retries and a record of every run | Scheduling |
| Documents | PDFs from HTML, and structured extraction from photos, PDFs, audio and video | Starlens, The SDKs |
| Hardware | Receipt printers, cash drawers and customer displays at a location | Stardeck Edge |
| Secrets | Environment variables per environment, pulled into .env.local for local runs | Environment Variables |
| Monitoring | Error tracking with no setup, runtime logs, deploy logs and uptime monitors | Operate Your App |
| Updates | Stardeck updates merged into your app, schema changes included | Take an update locally |
How you work with it
Everything runs from your terminal with the coding agent you already use: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, VS Code or Windsurf.
- The CLI creates apps, connects your agent, pulls your environment and deploys:
npx @stardeckai/cli new,setup,env pull,deploy,modules. - The MCP server gives your agent tools for the platform, limited by the role you choose when you connect it. See Tools & Permissions.
| Stage | What you do | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| Build | Create the app, run it locally against sandbox data, write workflow tests | Quickstart |
| Deploy | Preview a branch, merge its pull request, deploy production after you confirm the plan | Publishing & Deployment |
| Operate | Read errors and logs, fix and redeploy, watch uptime, take updates | Operate Your App |
Building for clients
Agencies and freelancers build in client organizations. The client pays Stardeck directly, and your team works inside the client's organization from its own logins.
When the work is done, you release the client. Its apps, data and plan stay as they are and keep running on Stardeck, with errors still recorded on each app's Monitoring tab. Updates keep arriving; someone in the client's organization, or your team while it has access, applies them.
Leaving
The repository is a Next.js app you can move, but it relies on Stardeck services for the table above. Moving Off Stardeck lists what you would replace.