Deploy from Local Code

When your code isn’t on GitHub — or you just want to iterate quickly — upload the current directory directly with lizard up. It packages your working tree as a tarball, sends it to the build nodes, and deploys.

Deploy the current directory

lizard up

Uploads the current directory as a tarball, respecting .gitignore (disable with --no-gitignore).
Forces sourceType=upload.
Streams build logs over SSE and prints the live URL when finished.

If the directory isn’t linked to a project yet, up runs init first. On a TTY that’s interactive; in a non-TTY (CI) it will not silently create a project — it errors and asks you to run lizard init --name <project> (or pass --name). This guards against a typo spawning an empty project.

Common flags

Flag	Purpose
`-s, --service <name>`	Target/create a specific service
`--build-command <cmd>`	Override the build command
`--start-command <cmd>`	Override the start command
`--pre-deploy-command <cmd>`	Run once before each deploy (e.g. migrations)
`--port <number>`	Container port (`0` = worker mode)
`--region <code>`	Region to deploy in
`-d, --detach`	Start the deploy and exit without streaming logs
`-c, --ci`	CI-friendly output
`--no-gitignore`	Upload everything, ignoring `.gitignore`

lizard up --service api --start-command "node server.js" --port 8080

Setting build/start commands

Passing --build-command or --start-command switches the service to the synthesized Dockerfile path. On that path, Procfile and package.json scripts.start are not read — set the start command explicitly (or include a CMD in your own Dockerfile). See Build Pipeline.

Re-deploying an upload service

lizard up re-uploads and rebuilds. To rebuild the last upload with current variables without re-uploading:

lizard redeploy --service api

Headless / CI

For non-interactive flows, link the project explicitly before deploying:

export LIZARD_TOKEN=lzd_xxx
lizard init --name my-project
lizard up --ci --service api

When to prefer GitHub instead

Upload is great for quick iteration and no-remote situations. For anything long-lived, prefer a GitHub source so pushes auto-redeploy and you get a clean deploy history.

Deploy from GitHub Background Workers