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The nao deploy command packages a local nao project and uploads it to a remote nao instance. It is the bridge between a project built locally with nao init / nao sync and a Cloud (or self-hosted) instance that will run chats, scheduled jobs, and integrations against that project. Use it to push the same context folder you work on locally to the instance your team chats with.

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Prerequisites

  • A remote nao instance URL (Cloud workspace or your self-hosted deployment).
  • An organization-level API key. Create one from Settings -> Organization -> API Keys. See Per-organization API keys.
  • A local project that contains a valid nao_config.yaml with a project_name field.

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Command

Run from the project directory (the folder that contains nao_config.yaml): 
nao deploy <url> --api-key <key>
Or from anywhere, pointing at the project folder explicitly: 
nao deploy <url> --api-key <key> --path /path/to/project

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Flags

FlagDescription
<url>URL of the remote nao instance (positional). Example: https://cloud.nao.com.
-k, --api-keyOrganization API key used to authenticate the upload.
-p, --pathProject directory. Defaults to the current working directory.

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What gets uploaded

nao deploy builds a gzipped tarball of the project folder and uploads it to <url>/api/deploy. The server extracts the archive, reads project_name from nao_config.yaml, and either creates a new project in the organization or updates the existing one with the same name.

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Default exclusions

These paths are always skipped when building the archive:
  • .git
  • .venv
  • .env
  • node_modules
  • __pycache__
  • repos
  • *.pyc

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.naoignore

Add a .naoignore file at the project root to exclude extra files. One pattern per line, # for comments. Patterns are matched against path parts (directory or file names). Example: 
# .naoignore
dbt_packages
logs
secrets.yaml
*.parquet

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Create vs update

The server looks up a project by (organization, project_name):
  • If no project with that name exists in the organization, a new one is created and the response reports status: "created".
  • If a project with that name already exists, its context folder is replaced with the uploaded content and the response reports status: "updated".
There is no merge. Every deploy is a full replacement of the project’s context folder on the remote instance.

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Example

$ nao deploy https://cloud.nao.com --api-key nao_sk_live_...

Deploying my_project to https://cloud.nao.com

Packaging project files...
Package size: 2.3 MB
Uploading...
Project my_project created
Project ID: 4f2d...

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Errors

  • Authentication failed. Check your API key. - the API key is missing, revoked, or does not belong to the target organization.
  • No nao_config.yaml found in current directory - run the command from a project root or pass --path.
  • nao_config.yaml is missing a 'project_name' field - add project_name: my_project at the top of nao_config.yaml.
  • Could not connect to <url> - check the URL and that the instance is reachable from your network.