# hotlane

> Validation-first deployment for apps on machines you own. Push a change and hotlane forks the app that is already running, applies the git delta, verifies the fork in isolation (health checks, smoke hooks), and flips traffic to it atomically - about one second end to end on real apps. Rollback flips a pointer to a kept previous version (~0.6s). A background "archivist" rebuilds every promoted version from source into a registry-pushed container image and periodically diffs its behavior against live to detect drift; drifted apps self-heal by rebuilding from the clean image on the next push.

Install: `curl -fsSL https://hotlane.dev/install.sh | sh`, or `brew install StefanIancu/hotlane/hotlane`, or `npm install -g hotlane`, or `pip install hotlane`. One Go binary = daemon (`hotlane serve`) + CLI (`init`, `push`, `test`, `promote`, `discard`, `rollback`, `status`, `logs`, `drift`). `hotlane test` holds a verified fork instead of promoting: poke it via the `X-Hotlane-Fork: <version>` header on the app URL while users stay on live, then `promote` (flips to the exact tested instance) or `discard`. Requires a Linux/macOS host with Docker and git. Does NOT run on ECS/Fargate/Cloud Run/Kubernetes - it is an alternative to that layer, not a passenger on it.

Config is one file (hotlane.yml): app, image, build, run, port, verify hooks, ring size, archive registry ref, notify webhook. The daemon exposes an HTTP API (push/rollback/status/logs/drift-check) with bearer-token auth and optional built-in Let's Encrypt TLS (-tls), so CI (GitHub Actions, GitLab, CodeBuild, or any curl) deploys with two secrets and one command. One daemon can serve several apps (`serve -apps DIR`, Host-header routing, one TLS cert per domain, per-app rings and drift verdicts). A `replay:` block adds shadow testing built into the deploy: recent live traffic is recorded in memory and replayed against every fork before promotion, diffing answers against what live actually served (report or gate mode). Full contract at /llms-full.txt.

**Complete operating contract in one fetch: [llms-full.txt](https://hotlane.dev/llms-full.txt)** - every command, endpoint, error, and invariant. MCP: `hotlane mcp` serves eight typed tools over stdio. Every CLI command accepts `-json`.

## Docs

- [Documentation](https://hotlane.dev/docs): quickstart, hotlane.yml reference, CLI, HTTP API, CI integration, archivist, limits
- [Repository](https://github.com/StefanIancu/hotlane): source (MIT), issues
- [CI integration guide](https://github.com/StefanIancu/hotlane/blob/main/docs/ci.md): GitHub Actions / GitLab / CodeBuild / generic recipes
- [Benchmark](https://github.com/StefanIancu/hotlane/blob/main/docs/benchmark.md): method and honest caveats; ~1-2s push-to-verified-live vs 8m13s median for a real GitHub Actions pipeline
- [Roadmap](https://github.com/StefanIancu/hotlane/blob/main/docs/roadmap.md)