Deploy, Lifecycle

A Clever Cloud application can easily be deployed and accessed once created, through following commands. Most can target a specific application, adding --app APP_ID_OR_NAME or a local alias (--alias, -a).

deploy

Once changes are committed in your local git repository, you can deploy it:

clever deploy

It will git push your code on the remote repository of your application on Clever Cloud automatically. You can, of course, use option to force push or use specific local branch for example:

[--branch, -b] BRANCH                 Branch to push (current branch by default) (default: )
[--tag, -t] TAG                       Tag to push (none by default) (default: )
[--quiet, -q]                         Don't show logs during deployment (default: false)
[--force, -f]                         Force deploy even if it's not fast-forwardable (default: false)
[--same-commit-policy, -p] POLICY     What to do when local and remote commit are identical (error, ignore, restart, rebuild) (default: error)
[--exit-on, -e] STEP                  Step at which the logs streaming is ended, steps are: deploy-start, deploy-end, never (default: deploy-end)

Since Clever Tools 5.0.0, clever deploy uses the git command installed on your system, which must be available in your PATH. If git isn’t available, or if you experience an issue with this backend, fall back to the previous pure JavaScript implementation. It works without git installed on your system, but it only supports HTTP, slows down on repositories with rewritten history, can time out on large repositories or big files, and can’t deploy from a linked Git worktree:

clever features disable system-git

To switch back to the system Git backend, use clever features enable system-git.

console | open

Once deployed, you can open the application on your default browser or Clever Cloud Console:

clever open
clever console

status

To get application state, options or running/scaling status, use:

clever status
clever status --format json

restart

Once deployed, an application can be restarted:

clever restart

By default, it will use its build cache when available. But you can override it or use other available options:

[--commit] COMMIT ID       Restart the application with a specific commit ID
[--without-cache]          Restart the application without using cache (default: false)
[--quiet, -q]              Don't show logs during deployment (default: false)
[--exit-on, -e] STEP       Step at which the logs streaming is ended, steps are: deploy-start, deploy-end, never (default: deploy-end)

stop | cancel-deploy

To stop an application or cancel any ongoing deployment, use:

clever stop
clever cancel-deploy

ssh

A Clever Cloud application is a running virtual machine you can ssh to, as a user (bas). Clever Cloud only accepts SSH key authentication, so Clever Tools disables the password fallback: a missing or unregistered key fails immediately. By default, it uses your OpenSSH configuration, but you can target a specific identity file. Clever Tools then also sets IdentitiesOnly=yes, so SSH doesn’t offer unrelated keys from your agent, while IdentityFile entries of your SSH configuration still apply:

clever ssh --identity-file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

If your application runs several instances, Clever Tools asks you which one to connect to. To skip this selection, for example in a script, use --instance with an instance ID, an instance number or any. Without an interactive terminal, the command fails when several instances are running and you don’t set --instance:

clever ssh --instance 0 --command hostname
clever ssh --instance any --command hostname

While a deployment rolls out, the instance going away and the one replacing it share the same number: Clever Tools then prefers an UP instance, the most recent first. An instance number never selects a build instance, and any only connects to a build instance when no other instance is running. To connect to a build instance during a deployment, list the instances to get its ID, shown as build in the # column:

clever instances
clever ssh --instance INSTANCE_ID

clever instances lists the running instances of your application by default. Add --all to list instances in any state, including deleted ones. Filter them by period with --after and --before, which select the instances that existed during that period, or by deployment with --deployment-id: these filters also include past instances. The command lists the 100 most recent matching instances by default, use --limit to get up to 1,000:

clever instances --all
clever instances --after 1d --format json

To execute a single command on the remote instance and exit, use --command (-c). Clever Tools runs it in bash when the instance provides it, in /bin/sh otherwise. Its output streams to your terminal without the SSH gateway messages, so you can use it in scripts:

clever ssh --command "ls -la"

To ssh a specific application, use:

clever ssh --app APP_ID_OR_NAME

logs

When you deploy an application on Clever Cloud, we collect its logs, hosted in our internal Pulsar stack, all included. To listen to the stream, use:

clever logs

You can also get logs from a specific timeline, deployment or add-on through options:

[--before, --until] BEFORE          Fetch logs before this date/time (ISO8601 date, positive number in seconds or duration, e.g.: 1h)
[--after, --since] AFTER            Fetch logs after this date/time (ISO8601 date, positive number in seconds or duration, e.g.: 1h)
[--search] SEARCH                   Fetch logs matching this pattern
[--deployment-id] DEPLOYMENT_ID     Fetch logs for a given deployment
[--addon] ADDON_ID                  Add-on ID or real ID
[--format, -F] FORMAT               Output format (human, json, json-stream) (default: human)

access logs

When you deploy an application on Clever Cloud, we collect its access logs, hosted in our internal Pulsar stack, all included. To listen to the stream, use:

clever accesslogs

You can also get access logs from a specific timeline through options, in multiple formats:

[--before, --until] BEFORE     Fetch logs before this date/time (ISO8601 date, positive number in seconds or duration, e.g.: 1h)
[--after, --since] AFTER       Fetch logs after this date/time (ISO8601 date, positive number in seconds or duration, e.g.: 1h)
[--format, -F] FORMAT          Output format (human, json, json-stream, clf) (default: human)

Besides HTTP requests, access logs include TCP redirections and SSH connections to your instances. In the human format, a column shows the transport of each line, HTTP, TCP or SSH, and HTTP methods and paths get their own columns so they stay aligned. The clf format, for Common Log Format, only outputs HTTP access logs.

You can for example get access logs in JSON stream format for the last hour with:

clever accesslogs --format json-stream --since 1h
clever accesslogs -F json-stream | jq '.source.ip'

or JSON if you add a date/time end limit:

clever accesslogs --app APP_NAME --since 2025-04-21T13:37:42 --until 1d -F json | jq '[.[] | {date, countryCode: .source.countryCode, ip: .source.ip, port: .source.port}]'
clever accesslogs --app APP_NAME --since 2025-04-21T13:37:42 --until 1d -F json | jq '.[] | [.date, .source.countryCode, .source.ip, .source.port] | @sh'

activity

To get deployment activity, use:

clever activity

By default, it will show you last 10 deployments. You can show all or listen to a stream of incoming deployments through options:

[--follow, -f]             Track new deployments in activity list (default: false)
[--show-all]               Show all activity (default: false)
[--format, -F] FORMAT      Output format (human, json, json-stream)