From Zero to Production: Deploying Your AI SaaS in Under an Hour

The deployment checklist

Getting the Rails AI Kit to production is straightforward. Here's the step-by-step:

1. Clone and configure (5 minutes)

Clone the repo, copy .env.example to .env, add your API keys for OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini, Stripe/Paystack, and your SMTP provider.

2. Database setup (2 minutes)

rails db:create db:migrate db:seed — PostgreSQL with pgvector handles everything including vector embeddings.

3. Deploy (10 minutes)

Push to Hatchbox, Render, Railway, or Fly.io. Set your environment variables. The app includes Kamal deployment config for VPS deployments.

4. Post-deploy (5 minutes)

Run migrations on production, verify Sidekiq is running, test the SMTP email from Admin > Settings, and create your first admin account.

You're live

The first user to sign up becomes super_admin automatically. Start customizing your branding, AI prompts, and pricing from the admin panel.