Portable deployment and recovery runbook (Phase 15)

Initial administrator is mandatory

Before the first API startup, you must choose one administrator-provisioning method. The simplest method is to set both values in the untracked .env file:

BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@example.com
BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<strong-temporary-password>

These are not application defaults; they are one-time provisioning inputs. If both values are blank, the API starts without creating an administrator and login cannot succeed. Existing users are never overwritten by changing these values later.

After the first successful login, remove both values from .env, restart the API, and rotate the administrator password through the supported account-management process. Never commit or share the password.

Configuration

Copy .env.example to an untracked deployment environment file. Production requires a secret-manager supplied SESSION_SECRET of at least 32 characters and refuses AUTOMATED_OUTREACH_ENABLED=true. Keep bootstrap credentials one-time only; remove and rotate them after provisioning. Never place secrets in images, Compose YAML, logs, backups, or public web roots.

For criteria-first AI web research without a paid scraper, use the self-hosted mode:

AI_RESEARCH_PROVIDER=nous_portal
NOUS_API_KEY=<Nous Portal API key>
NOUS_MODEL=Hermes-4-405B
NOUS_BASE_URL=https://inference-api.nousresearch.com/v1
NOUS_ALLOWED_HOSTS=inference-api.nousresearch.com
SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://searxng:8080
SEARXNG_ALLOWED_HOSTS=searxng
SEARXNG_SECRET_KEY=<random secret>

Compose starts SearXNG without publishing a host port. The API reaches it only on the internal Compose network; SearXNG alone has a separate egress network for its upstream search engines. web_search calls SearXNG's JSON endpoint and scrape_website uses the API's bounded SSRF-safe scanner. No Firecrawl key is required. Firecrawl variables remain an optional legacy compatibility fallback.

The Nous adapter calls /chat/completions with strict web_search and scrape_website function tools. Tool calls are capped at 4 and each result at 16 KiB; criteria, model output, page text, redirects, and candidate URLs remain bounded and untrusted. Only structured HTTPS targets are accepted and the existing crawler fetches/persists evidence. Missing/unsafe configuration, unavailable providers, malformed calls, oversized responses, SSRF targets, and exhausted budgets fail closed. Status metadata never includes secrets.

The prior OpenAI Responses and generic provider variables remain supported only as compatibility adapters.

Validate before startup:

python3 -c 'from app.config import load_config; load_config()'
docker compose config --quiet

Health and readiness

GET /api/v1/health/live is process liveness and unauthenticated.
GET /api/v1/health/ready checks SQLite connectivity and returns HTTP 503 until ready.
scripts/healthcheck.sh checks readiness and the outreach safety flag.

Use readiness for load balancers and container health checks; liveness is only for process supervision.

SQLite backup and restore

Backups are host-side artifacts and never include .env or secret files. backup_sqlite.sh uses SQLite's online backup API for a consistent snapshot, writes with mode 0600 to a temporary file, atomically renames it, writes a SHA-256 sidecar, and retains only the newest configured count.

scripts/backup_sqlite.sh /var/lib/prospect-platform/prospects.db /var/backups/prospect-platform 30

Before restoring, stop application writes, verify the checksum sidecar, and use the explicit confirmation flag. The script first makes a pre-restore backup, then atomically replaces the target only after an integrity check:

scripts/restore_sqlite.sh /var/backups/prospect-platform/prospects-<timestamp>.db /var/lib/prospect-platform/prospects.db --confirm-restore

Validate backup directory permissions and keep copies encrypted/off-host according to the retention policy. Test restores in an isolated directory quarterly. Never use docker compose down -v on a data-bearing installation.

Rollback

scripts/rollback.sh is deliberately non-destructive: it prints the approved image/tag or digest rollback procedure and executes no stop, delete, restore, or deployment action. Record old/new image digests, configuration revision, backup/checksum, and health/readiness evidence.

systemd / Virtualmin

systemd/prospect-api.service.example is a least-privilege service example. Copy it to a reviewed systemd unit, create /etc/prospect-platform/prospect.env with mode 0600, use a dedicated user/data directory, and place TLS/reverse proxying in the Virtualmin-managed web tier. Do not put environment files under public_html.

Monitoring and incident response

Monitor readiness failures, restart count, HTTP 5xx rate, SQLite backup age/checksum failures, disk usage, and unexpected outbound traffic. Alert when the latest backup is older than the agreed RPO or when a restore drill fails. Routine logs must not contain passwords, tokens, cookies, API keys, full contact values, or free-text notes.

On incident: record image/config revision and health state; preserve redacted logs and audit evidence; isolate the service for data loss, unauthorized access, or unexpected outbound traffic; rotate secrets through the secret manager; validate restore/readiness and tenant-scoped reads; then document root cause and retention impact. Outreach remains disabled throughout.

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