The VIA Engine

Everything operators need to run Vary apps.

Alpha. VIA is under active development. APIs, operational flows, and host requirements may change between releases.

User story On-call operator Saturday, 03:11. An operator gets paged for billing-api...

Saturday, 03:11. An operator gets paged for billing-api: the runtime container is leaking memory, and EU customers are starting to see 5xx responses.

On the Via host, via app status billing-api shows current artifact v1.4.2 and previous artifact v1.4.1. The operator runs via app rollback billing-api v1.4.1. Via checks that the previous artifact is still signed, still present, and still passes runtime preflight.

The rollback completes in 22 seconds. The route flips to the older container. via app logs --runtime billing-api shows memory flattening out, and the 5xx alarm clears at 03:18.

In the morning, the build report for v1.4.2 points to a leak in a streaming JSON encoder. The fix ships as v1.4.3 after the same build, test, verify, and route-attach loop as every other release.

No Kubernetes detour. No rebuild during the incident. A signed artifact already on disk was enough to serve.

Source pushed to Via host Clean checkout Typecheck, tests, validation gates Signed, content-addressed artifact Runtime preflight and launch Config, secrets, managed SQLite attached Routes, domains, TLS published Status, logs, audit, backups, rollback
Source pushed to Via host Clean checkout Typecheck, tests, validation gates Signed, content-addressed artifact Runtime preflight and launch Config, secrets, managed SQLite attached Routes, domains, TLS published Status, logs, audit, backups, rollback

VIA is the application server for Vary apps. It gives operators one place to install the host, accept app source, run the required gates, build and sign artifacts, launch runtimes, attach config and storage, publish routes, inspect logs, roll back releases, and back up state.

The point is not only that deploys start from source. The point is that VIA owns the whole path from submitted code to running service. It checks out a clean copy, typechecks the app, runs tests and validation gates, packages the artifact, verifies what it is about to run, and keeps the existing runtime serving when a build or deploy fails.

From the operator perspective, VIA is the control plane for Vary applications: daemons, build history, test results, runtime status, domains, TLS, config, secrets, managed SQLite, audit, backups, and rollback. App owners still get the vary app workflow, but production authority stays with the VIA host.

Documentation
Overview High-level overview of Via and the main docs path.
Introduction What Via provides for Vary apps and how the platform model works.
Install Install, initialize, doctor, start daemons, and provision the first app.
Deploy an app Deploy an existing Via app from a Vary project checkout.
Deploy lifecycle What Via does after a source push: build phases, runtime launch, readiness gates, and source checkout layout.
Deploy diagnostics Use app status, logs, smoke checks, debug bundles, and retries after a deploy fails or needs inspection.
Config redeploys Roll out config and secret changes without pushing new source.
Architecture How Via runs Vary apps with services, Docker, config, add-ons, routes, and durable state.
Domains and routes Attach hostnames to apps with DNS proof, approval, and certificate checks.
Domain proof token What Via's DNS proof token is, why it is required, and how to handle it.
Certificates Public ACME certificates, internal certificates, uploaded certificates, and per-domain or per-route certificate policy.
TLS, routing, and the proxy HTTPS, route application, public app traffic, and maintenance responses.
Add-ons How Via attaches managed resources to apps through runtime bindings.
Secrets and config How Via stores runtime config, delivers secrets, and keeps secret values out of command history.
Runtime trust How Via publishes public CA roots into managed app runtimes.
Managed SQLite Create, bind, snapshot, restore, and destroy Via-managed SQLite add-ons.
Public API release Manifest, capability, config, add-on, routing, backup, and rollback guidance for public Vary APIs on Via.
Operations Verified operator commands for status, diagnostics, history, rollback, rotation, backup, and restore.
Via CLI reference App-owner `vary` commands and host-operator `via` commands, who runs them, prerequisites, and absent commands.
Services and logs Operate the Via services, inspect logs, and provision apps.