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Deploying to Render

Overview

This project deploys as two Render services:

  • chess-backend — Node.js Web Service (WebSocket + REST API)
  • chess-frontend — Static Site (React/Vite)

The render.yaml at the repo root defines both. Render will auto-detect it when you connect your GitHub repo.

1. Push your repo to GitHub

Make sure your repo contains both backend/ and frontend/ directories, plus render.yaml.

2. Connect to Render

  1. Go to render.com → New → Blueprint
  2. Connect your GitHub repo
  3. Render will read render.yaml and create both services automatically

3. Backend environment variables

Set these in the Render dashboard under chess-backend → Environment:

Key Value
DATABASE_URL Your PostgreSQL connection string
REDIS_URL Your Redis connection string
JWT_SECRET A long random secret string
NODE_ENV production

Render offers managed PostgreSQL and Redis add-ons — create them from the dashboard and copy the connection URLs.

4. Frontend environment variable

Set this under chess-frontend → Environment:

Key Value
VITE_WS_URL wss://chess-backend.onrender.com

Replace chess-backend with the actual subdomain Render assigns to your backend service.

5. Stockfish on Render

Stockfish is installed automatically during the backend build step:

apt-get update && apt-get install -y stockfish && npm install && npm run build

This is already set in render.yaml — no extra action needed. Render's Node.js web service environment runs on Debian/Ubuntu, so apt-get works out of the box.

If the build ever fails with a Stockfish error, you can verify availability by checking the build logs for stockfish installation output.

6. Deploy order

Deploy the backend first, wait for it to be live, then deploy the frontend — so you have the real backend URL to set in VITE_WS_URL.

7. Troubleshooting

WebSocket won't connect

  • Confirm VITE_WS_URL uses wss:// (not ws://) — Render always terminates TLS.
  • Make sure the backend URL matches exactly what Render shows (e.g. chess-backend.onrender.com).

Stockfish not working / fallback to random moves

  • Check the backend build logs for apt-get install -y stockfish — it should show a successful install.
  • Render's free tier may time out during heavy builds; retry the deploy if needed.

Database errors on startup

  • Run npm run db:migrate locally against your production DATABASE_URL, or trigger it in a Render shell (dashboard → shell tab).

Cold start delays

  • Free-tier Render services spin down after inactivity. The first WebSocket connection after sleep will take ~30 seconds. Upgrade to a paid instance to avoid this.