Deployment Guide

Deploy the Green Monkey Dashboard to production.

Prerequisites

1. Stripe Account — stripe.com 
2. Email Service — SendGrid, Mailgun, or AWS SES
3. Database — Vercel Postgres, Supabase, or any PostgreSQL host
4. GitHub Account — For deployment via Vercel

Deploy to Vercel

Step 1: Stripe Setup

1. Create an account at dashboard.stripe.com 
2. Go to Developers → API keys, copy your Secret key and Publishable key
3. Set up a webhook:
   • Go to Developers → Webhooks → Add endpoint
   • URL: https://your-domain.vercel.app/api/stripe/webhook
   • Events: checkout.session.completed
   • Copy the webhook signing secret

Step 2: Email Service

SendGrid (Recommended — free tier: 100 emails/day)

1. Sign up at sendgrid.com 
2. Create an API key in Settings → API Keys
3. Verify your sender email/domain
4. Set SENDGRID_API_KEY in environment variables

Mailgun

1. Sign up at mailgun.com 
2. Get API key from Settings → API Security
3. Set MAILGUN_API_KEY and MAILGUN_DOMAIN

AWS SES

1. Set up SES and verify your domain
2. Set AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, AWS_REGION

Step 3: Database

Vercel Postgres (Recommended)

1. Go to Vercel Dashboard → Storage → Create Database → Postgres
2. Copy the POSTGRES_URL connection string
3. Vercel automatically sets this as DATABASE_URL

Supabase

1. Create a project at supabase.com 
2. Go to Project Settings → Database
3. Copy the connection string and set as DATABASE_URL

Railway / Render

1. Create a PostgreSQL database
2. Copy the connection string
3. Set as DATABASE_URL

Step 4: Deploy

Via GitHub (Recommended)

1. Push your code to GitHub
2. Go to vercel.com 
3. Click Import Project
4. Select your repository
5. Set environment variables (see Step 5)
6. Click Deploy

Via Vercel CLI

npm install -g vercel
vercel login
cd greenmonkey-dashboard
vercel

Step 5: Environment Variables

Set these in Vercel Dashboard → Settings → Environment Variables:

SECRET_KEY=<generate-random-64-char-string>
BASE_URL=https://your-domain.vercel.app
DATABASE_URL=<your-postgres-connection-string>
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_...
STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=pk_live_...
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_...
SENDGRID_API_KEY=SG...

Generate a secret key:

import secrets
print(secrets.token_hex(32))

Step 6: Initialize Database

After the first deployment:

curl https://your-domain.vercel.app/api/admin/init-db

Step 7: Verify

1. Visit your deployed dashboard
2. Test login with magic link
3. Test buying credits with Stripe test card 4242 4242 4242 4242
4. Verify credits are added

Deploy to Heroku

# Install CLI
brew install heroku/brew/heroku
 
# Login and create app
heroku login
heroku create greenmonkey-dashboard
 
# Add PostgreSQL
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:mini
 
# Set environment variables
heroku config:set SECRET_KEY=$(python -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))')
heroku config:set STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_...
heroku config:set STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_...
heroku config:set SENDGRID_API_KEY=SG...
 
# Deploy
git push heroku main
 
# Initialize database
heroku run python init_db.py
 
# Open
heroku open

Going Live

When you’re ready for production:

1. Stripe — Switch from sk_test_ to sk_live_ keys. Update webhook endpoint.
2. Email — Verify sender domain. Remove sandbox mode.
3. Database — Upgrade to a paid plan. Set up backups. Enable connection pooling.
4. Monitoring — Set up Sentry or similar for error tracking.

Troubleshooting

Magic links not sending

• Check email service API key
• Verify sender email is verified
• Review server logs

Stripe webhooks failing

• Verify webhook secret is correct
• Check webhook URL is accessible
• Review Stripe webhook logs

Database connection errors

• Verify DATABASE_URL is correct
• Check if the database is running
• Ensure firewall allows connections

Credits not added after payment

• Check Stripe webhook logs
• Verify webhook endpoint is working
• Check database for transaction records