Frequently asked questions
Answers to common questions about NEXUS AI deployments, databases, workers, storage, backups, cloud providers, secrets, and pricing.
Deployment basics
NEXUS AI deploys web apps, APIs, workers, database services, storage resources, and backups from a unified dashboard, CLI, API, and MCP toolset.
Full-stack services
Docker deployments can attach PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, background workers, volumes, and S3-compatible buckets so the app has the runtime resources it needs.
Operations and recovery
The platform includes logs, health checks, scaling, stop and start workflows, redeploy, rollback, database backup, in-place restore, and restore into another service in the same organization.
App plus database plus worker
A typical NEXUS AI deployment can run a web app, a PostgreSQL database, a Redis queue, and a background worker as one connected service group. The app and worker share the same deployment network, so application code can use internal hostnames such as postgresql and redis instead of hard-coded host ports or external database addresses.
Storage and recovery included
Production apps usually need more than compute. NEXUS AI supports persistent filesystem volumes for apps that write to paths such as /data, S3-compatible buckets for uploads and generated files, database backups, in-place restore, and restore into another compatible service in the same organization.
One workflow across interfaces
The same stack can be managed from the dashboard, CLI, REST API, or MCP tools. Developers can deploy from GitHub, add database services, attach storage, run workers, scale replicas, inspect logs, create backups, and recover data without switching between cloud consoles and hand-built scripts.
Frequently asked questions
Does NEXUS AI have a REST API?
Yes. NEXUS AI exposes a full REST API for all platform operations. See the REST API Reference in our documentation for endpoints, authentication, and examples.
Does NEXUS AI support MCP (Model Context Protocol)?
Yes. NEXUS AI provides a full suite of MCP tools that allow AI assistants and automation pipelines to interact with the platform, including nexusai_deploy_create, nexusai_deploy_source, nexusai_deploy_status, nexusai_deploy_logs, nexusai_deploy_rollback, nexusai_deploy_scale, secrets management, domain management, and AI-powered database tools. See the MCP Tools Reference for full parameter documentation.
Can I deploy from GitHub automatically?
Yes. Connect your GitHub repository in the deployment settings. NEXUS AI can trigger new deployments on push to a specified branch.
Does NEXUS AI support webhooks?
Yes. Outgoing webhooks can be configured for deployment lifecycle events (deploy started, deploy succeeded, deploy failed, rollback completed).
What can the Application Generation Engine build?
Any application that runs in a Docker container. It has strong support for Node.js (Express, Fastify, NestJS, Next.js), Python (FastAPI, Flask, Django), Go, Java (Spring Boot), Ruby (Rails), PHP (Laravel), and Rust. If a runtime can be containerized, NEXUS AI can generate and deploy it.
How do I write a good prompt?
Be specific about the language and framework, the key endpoints or features, any external dependencies (PostgreSQL, Redis, etc.), and the port to listen on (default is 8080 unless specified). Example: "Create a Python FastAPI service with GET /products, POST /products, JWT authentication, DATABASE_URL from environment variables, running on port 8080."
Does NEXUS AI generate a Dockerfile?
Yes. Every generated application includes a production-optimized Dockerfile with correct base images, multi-stage builds where appropriate, and no hardcoded credentials.
Can I edit the generated code before deploying?
Yes. Generated code is displayed in a Monaco editor (the same engine as VS Code) and you can modify any file before deploying.
What AI providers can I use for generation?
Anthropic Claude (claude-haiku-4-5, claude-sonnet-4-6, and above) — recommended; OpenAI (GPT-4, GPT-4o, and above); and any OpenAI-compatible API endpoint. You supply your own API key. NEXUS AI uses it to call the provider on your behalf and does not share keys between customers.
Which database services can I back up in NEXUS AI?
NEXUS AI supports backups for deployment database services created as Additional Services: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Redis. Backups are scoped to one database service at a time. External managed databases connected through environment variables or Secrets Vault must be backed up through their cloud provider or database vendor.
What is included in a database backup?
A backup includes the data from the selected database service only. It does not include application code, container images, deployment settings, environment variables, access tokens, Secrets Vault values, logs, or other services in the deployment.
What backup file formats does NEXUS AI create?
PostgreSQL backups use pg_dump custom format (.dump). MySQL backups use mysqldump SQL files (.sql). MongoDB backups use a compressed mongodump archive (.archive). Redis backups use the Redis RDB snapshot format (.rdb). These are portable database-native formats.
How do I create a backup?
Open the deployment details page, go to the Databases tab, choose the database service, and create a backup from the service backup controls. You can also use the REST API: POST /api/deployment-services/{serviceId}/backup, or the MCP tool nexusai_db_backup with the serviceId.
How do I list available backups?
Use the Databases tab backup list for the service, call GET /api/deployment-services/{serviceId}/backups with your JWT, or use the MCP tool nexusai_db_backup_list. The response includes backup IDs, file names, file sizes, service type, status, and creation time.
How do I download a backup?
You can stream a backup directly with GET /api/deployment-services/{serviceId}/backups/{backupId}/download using your JWT. For browser or curl workflows that should not receive your JWT, create a short-lived signed URL with POST /api/deployment-services/{serviceId}/backups/{backupId}/download-url, then download the returned URL.
How long do signed backup download URLs last?
Signed backup download URLs default to 5 minutes. You can request ttlSeconds when creating the URL. The minimum lifetime is 30 seconds and the maximum lifetime is 3600 seconds, or 1 hour.
Are downloaded backups secure?
The download endpoint requires organization-scoped authorization or a valid signed URL. After a file is downloaded, it should be treated as sensitive database data. Store it only in approved encrypted storage, restrict access, and delete local copies when they are no longer needed.
How do I restore a backup?
Restore from the same service backup list in the dashboard, call POST /api/deployment-services/{serviceId}/restore with {"backupId":"..."} using your JWT, or use the MCP tool nexusai_db_restore. Always verify the serviceId and backupId before restoring.
Does restoring a backup overwrite current data?
Yes. Restore can overwrite, clean, drop, or replace existing data depending on the database engine. PostgreSQL uses pg_restore with clean/if-exists behavior, MySQL imports the SQL dump, MongoDB restores with drop behavior, and Redis replaces the RDB snapshot after stopping and starting the Redis container.
Can I restore a backup into a different service?
NEXUS AI restore operations are service-scoped: the backup must belong to the same serviceId used in the restore request. This prevents accidental cross-service or cross-tenant restores. To migrate to another database, download the backup and use database-native restore tooling outside NEXUS AI.
Should I create a backup before restoring?
Yes. Create a fresh backup of the current database before restoring an older backup unless you are certain the current state is disposable. This gives you a recovery point if the restore target or backup selection was wrong.
Why did backup creation fail with "Service has no running container"?
The backup process needs a live database container so it can run the database-native dump command and copy the backup file. Start or redeploy the database service, wait until it is running, then retry the backup.
Can I enable automatic backups?
Yes. Scheduled backups can be enabled per service. Use the dashboard backup scheduling control, PATCH /api/deployment-services/{serviceId}/backup/schedule with {"enabled":true}, or the MCP tool nexusai_db_backup_schedule. Scheduled backups run daily for enabled services.
Can I create, download, and restore backups from the CLI?
Yes. Log in with nexus auth login, then run nexus db services to find a service ID. Use nexus db backup {serviceId} to create a backup, nexus db backups {serviceId} to list backups, nexus db backup-download {serviceId} {backupId} to download the file, and nexus db restore {serviceId} {backupId} to restore. The CLI also supports nexus db backup-download --share for signed download URLs, nexus db backup-schedule --enable or --disable for daily backups, and nexus db backup-delete for cleanup.
Which cloud providers does NEXUS AI support?
AWS App Runner (Pro, Healthcare Pro, Enterprise), Google Cloud Run (Starter and above), Azure Container Apps (Pro, Healthcare Pro, Enterprise), NEXUS AI Managed Infrastructure (all plans), On-premises self-hosted (Enterprise).
Can I deploy to multiple cloud providers simultaneously?
Yes, on Pro and above. You can run the same application on AWS, GCP, and Azure concurrently from a single dashboard.
What is NEXUS AI Managed Infrastructure?
NEXUS AI Managed Infrastructure is a shared containerized runtime operated by NEXUS AI. It is the fastest way to start because it requires no cloud account configuration. It is suitable for development, staging, and early production workloads. For regulated workloads or workloads requiring private, isolated runtimes, use your own cloud account.
Can I deploy into my own AWS account?
Yes. Connect your AWS account in Settings → Providers by providing the required IAM credentials. NEXUS AI will deploy directly to AWS App Runner within your account. Your data stays in your AWS environment.
Can I deploy into my own Google Cloud account?
Yes. Connect a GCP service account in Settings → Providers. NEXUS AI deploys to Google Cloud Run within your GCP project.
Can I deploy into my own Azure account?
Yes, on Pro and above. Connect your Azure subscription and resource group in Settings → Providers. NEXUS AI deploys to Azure Container Apps within your Azure environment.
Does NEXUS AI support on-premises or air-gapped deployments?
Yes, for Enterprise customers. NEXUS AI can be deployed entirely within your own on-premises or air-gapped environment. Contact us for details.
What happens if my cloud provider goes down?
NEXUS AI is a control plane — if your cloud provider has an outage, the running containers continue operating (they are independent of NEXUS AI). The dashboard and deploy operations may be affected until the provider recovers.
Can I use a custom domain?
Yes. Custom domains can be added in the deployment settings. NEXUS AI provisions DNS and SSL automatically for NEXUS AI Managed deployments. For your own cloud account, you configure the domain through your cloud provider's DNS.
Can I update a file in a running deployment without redeploying?
Yes, for LOCAL_DOCKER deployments. Use nexus cp to copy a single file into the running app container, for example nexus cp ./sitemap.xml my-app:/app/public/sitemap.xml. This is useful for emergency sitemap, static asset, config, or generated HTML patches. Treat it as a runtime fix: commit the same change to your source because copied files can be lost on redeploy, rollback, scale, or container replacement.
How do I run a command inside a deployed container?
Use nexus exec with a deployment name or ID, for example nexus exec my-app ls -la /app/public/ or nexus exec my-app sh -c "tail -n 50 /app/logs/app.log". The command runs in batch mode and returns captured stdout and stderr. It is not an interactive TTY session.
Does nexus exec work on Cloud Run, App Runner, or Azure Container Apps?
No. nexus exec and nexus cp are intentionally limited to LOCAL_DOCKER deployments because managed cloud runtimes do not expose a normal Docker shell or copy target through NEXUS AI.
What are the limits of nexus cp and nexus exec?
nexus cp supports single-file copy only, not recursive directory copy. For directory trees, archive the directory and extract it with nexus exec. nexus exec is batch execution, not interactive shell access. Long-running commands should use --timeout, and each call has a 2MB stdout and stderr cap.
What does the Enterprise plan include?
Everything in Pro, plus: deployment into customer-owned AWS, GCP, or Azure accounts; private build and runtime isolation; unlimited deployments, containers, and versions; advanced audit logs with configurable retention; SSO (SAML / OIDC); IP allowlisting and private network controls; air-gapped and on-premises deployment support; unlimited team members; dedicated support with SLA; HIPAA / SOC-ready infrastructure patterns; BAA available.
Can NEXUS AI be deployed on-premises?
Yes. Enterprise customers can run NEXUS AI entirely within their own on-premises or air-gapped environment. This includes the control plane, container registry, and runtime infrastructure. Contact sales for details.
What does the Enterprise onboarding process look like?
1. Initial call with the NEXUS AI sales team. 2. Technical requirements review (cloud provider, compliance needs, SSO, network controls). 3. Custom contract and BAA (if required). 4. Dedicated onboarding session with your engineering team. 5. Ongoing dedicated support channel.
Is there a minimum contract length for Enterprise?
Enterprise plans are typically annual contracts. Month-to-month Enterprise arrangements are available; contact sales for pricing.
What is NEXUS AI?
NEXUS AI is an AI-native DevOps platform that turns natural language prompts into production-ready containerized applications and deploys them to AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or NEXUS AI-managed infrastructure. It handles the full application lifecycle: code generation, container builds, deployment orchestration, secrets management, real-time observability, and one-click rollbacks — all from a single platform.
What problem does NEXUS AI solve?
AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude can rapidly generate application code, but getting that code into production still requires deep DevOps expertise: writing Dockerfiles, configuring CI/CD pipelines, managing cloud provider credentials, setting up observability, and handling secrets. NEXUS AI automates the entire path from AI-generated code to live production application.
Who is NEXUS AI for?
SaaS founders who want to deploy AI-generated apps without a DevOps engineer. Platform and DevOps teams standardizing deployment workflows across an organization. AI product builders who generate code with LLMs and need a reliable production path. Healthcare and fintech teams needing HIPAA-aligned infrastructure with audit trails. Enterprises with multi-cloud mandates (AWS + GCP + Azure) and compliance requirements.
How is NEXUS AI different from Vercel, Railway, or Render?
NEXUS AI is the only platform that combines AI code generation with multi-cloud deployment (AWS, GCP, and Azure simultaneously), customer-owned cloud accounts, production-grade versioned rollbacks, HIPAA-aligned controls, and a unified control plane for the entire application lifecycle. Vercel is optimized for frontend/serverless. Railway and Render are single-cloud platforms without AI generation or enterprise compliance features.
Is NEXUS AI a cloud provider?
No. NEXUS AI is a deployment control plane that sits on top of cloud providers. You deploy your workloads to AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or NEXUS AI-managed infrastructure — NEXUS AI orchestrates the process. Enterprise customers can deploy entirely within their own cloud accounts.
Does NEXUS AI have vendor lock-in?
No. NEXUS AI deploys standard Docker containers to standard cloud services (AWS App Runner, GCP Cloud Run, Azure Container Apps). Your container images, source code, and configuration are always yours. You can move workloads between cloud providers or away from NEXUS AI at any time.
How do I create an account?
Go to nexusai.run/register. Sign up with email and password or with your GitHub account. No credit card required to create an account.
Do I need a cloud account to get started?
No. NEXUS AI Managed Infrastructure is included on all plans and works immediately without any external cloud setup. When you are ready to deploy to your own AWS, GCP, or Azure account, you can connect it in Settings → Providers.
How long does the first deployment take?
Typically 2–4 minutes for a generated app deploying to NEXUS AI Managed Infrastructure. Deploying to your own cloud provider adds 1–3 minutes for the first deploy (subsequent deploys are faster due to layer caching).
What do I need to deploy my first app?
1. A NEXUS AI account (free to create). 2. An AI provider API key (Anthropic or OpenAI) — for code generation. 3. A text description of what you want to build.
Can I import an existing project instead of generating a new one?
Yes. NEXUS AI supports three input methods: AI generation — describe your app, NEXUS AI builds it; GitHub repository — connect a repo and deploy from source; Container image — provide a pre-built Docker image URL.
Is NEXUS AI HIPAA compliant?
NEXUS AI provides HIPAA-aligned technical safeguards — including tenant isolation, encrypted secrets, audit logs, and customer-owned cloud deployments — designed to support customer HIPAA compliance programs. Customers remain responsible for their overall compliance posture, application logic, data classification, internal policies, and HIPAA program governance. NEXUS AI is not a HIPAA-certified entity.
Does NEXUS AI sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA)?
Yes. BAAs are available for Enterprise and Healthcare Pro customers. Contact us to request a BAA.
What HIPAA-aligned controls does NEXUS AI provide?
Container-level isolation per deployment (no shared runtime between tenants). AES-256-GCM encrypted secrets, runtime injection only. Full audit logs: every deployment, secret access, configuration change, and login. Role-based access control with least-privilege policies. Customer-owned cloud deployment (Enterprise) — data never leaves your environment. Region-based data residency control. SSO with SAML / OIDC (Enterprise) for workforce access management. IP allowlisting and private network controls (Enterprise).
Can we deploy into our own cloud account for HIPAA workloads?
Yes. Enterprise customers can deploy NEXUS AI entirely within their own AWS, GCP, or Azure accounts. Application data, logs, and container images remain within the customer's cloud environment.
Where is customer data stored?
Application containers are deployed to the cloud region selected by the customer. For NEXUS AI Managed deployments, infrastructure is hosted in US regions by default. Enterprise customers choose their own regions within their cloud accounts.
Is data shared between tenants?
No. NEXUS AI enforces full tenant isolation. No application runtime, storage, or configuration is shared between different customer organizations. Enterprise plans add fully private runtimes within customer-owned cloud environments.
Do you support audit logging for HIPAA compliance?
Yes. NEXUS AI logs all deployment events, secret access events, configuration changes, and user authentication events. Logs include timestamp, user identity, action, resource, and outcome. Audit logs are available in the dashboard and can be exported. Healthcare Pro and Enterprise plans include extended audit log retention.
Can we restrict network access to our deployments?
Yes. Enterprise deployments support IP allowlisting, private VPC networks, and air-gapped environments.
What logs are available?
Build logs: every step of the container build process, streamed in real time via WebSocket. Runtime logs: stdout and stderr from your running container, streamed live.
How long are logs retained?
Log retention depends on plan. Logs are available in the dashboard for the lifetime of the deployment. Exporting logs for long-term retention is available on Pro and above.
Can I search or filter logs?
Yes. The log viewer supports text search and filtering by time range. Full-text log search is available on Pro and above.
Are health checks available?
Yes. Configure a health check endpoint (e.g., /health) in your deployment settings. NEXUS AI polls this endpoint at configurable intervals. Failed health checks are flagged in the dashboard and can trigger alerts.
Can I set up alerts for deployment failures?
Webhook-based alerts for deployment status changes are available on Pro and above.
How much does NEXUS AI cost?
Starter: $29/month. Pro: $149/month. Healthcare Starter: $149/month. Healthcare Pro: $299/month. Enterprise: Custom — contact sales.
What is included in the Starter plan?
Application Generation Engine, NEXUS AI Managed Infrastructure (shared runtime), Google Cloud Run deployment target, 2 concurrent active deployments, public HTTPS endpoint, and community support.
What is included in the Pro plan?
Everything in Starter plus: multi-cloud (AWS App Runner, Google Cloud Run, Azure Container Apps), 5 active deployments with up to 10 concurrent containers, versioned deployments with one-click rollback, real-time build and runtime observability, encrypted secrets vault, team access with RBAC, and email support.
What are the Healthcare plans?
Healthcare plans include HIPAA-aligned infrastructure controls, full audit logs, and RBAC suitable for regulated healthcare workloads. Healthcare Starter is $149/month. Healthcare Pro is $299/month and adds versioned deployments, extended audit retention, and additional compliance controls. BAAs are available for these plans.
Is there a free tier or free trial?
There is no permanent free tier or time-limited trial. The Starter plan at $29/month provides full platform access. You can create an account and explore the interface without a credit card.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Monthly plans can be cancelled at any time with no cancellation fee. Access continues until the end of the current billing period. Annual plans follow the terms of your contract.
Can I change my plan?
Yes. Upgrade or downgrade at any time from your account settings. Upgrades take effect immediately. Downgrades take effect at the start of the next billing cycle.
Do cloud provider costs appear on my NEXUS AI bill?
No. If you deploy to your own AWS, GCP, or Azure account, cloud provider costs are billed directly by the cloud provider to your account. NEXUS AI only charges the platform fee.
How does versioning work?
Every deployment in NEXUS AI creates an immutable, numbered version. Version 1 is the first deploy. Version 2 is the next deploy. Each version captures the container image, configuration, and secrets state at the time of deployment.
How do I roll back to a previous version?
Go to your deployment → History tab. Every previous version is listed with its version number, timestamp, and status. Click Restore to roll back. The previous container image is re-deployed with no rebuild required. Rollback typically takes under 60 seconds.
Does rolling back affect secrets?
No. Secrets are managed separately from deployments. Rolling back a deployment restores the container image and runtime configuration but does not change current secret values. If you need to restore previous secret values, update them manually in Settings → Secrets before rolling back.
Which plans include rollbacks?
One-click versioned rollbacks are available on Pro, Healthcare Pro, and Enterprise plans. Starter plan deployments are versioned but rollback requires a manual redeploy.
How many previous versions are retained?
All versions are retained as long as the project exists. There is no automatic version pruning.
How are secrets stored?
Secrets are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before being written to the database. The encryption key is separate from the database. Secrets are decrypted only at container startup and injected as environment variables. They are never stored in plaintext, never written to logs, and never included in container images.
Can secrets appear in build logs or runtime logs?
No. NEXUS AI explicitly prevents secret values from appearing in build output or runtime logs. If you accidentally include a secret value in your application code and it is logged by your application, NEXUS AI cannot prevent that — but secrets managed through the Secrets Vault are never exposed by the platform.
How do I rotate a secret?
Go to Settings → Secrets, edit the secret value, and save. Redeploy your application to pick up the new value. The old value is overwritten and no longer stored.
What encryption is used?
At rest: AES-256-GCM for secrets and sensitive configuration. In transit: TLS 1.2 minimum, TLS 1.3 preferred for all connections. API keys: Encrypted with AES-256-GCM, never logged or transmitted in plaintext.
Is my application code stored by NEXUS AI?
Generated application code is temporarily used during the build process to create the container image. Built container images are stored in the container registry associated with your cloud provider. For NEXUS AI Managed deployments, images are stored in NEXUS AI's registry until the deployment is deleted.
What is tenant isolation?
Each NEXUS AI organization runs in a fully isolated context. No application runtime, storage, network, or configuration is shared between different customer organizations. Enterprise customers can additionally run in fully private runtimes within their own cloud accounts.
Does NEXUS AI have a bug bounty or responsible disclosure program?
Contact [email protected] to report security vulnerabilities. We take all reports seriously and respond promptly.
What roles are available?
Owner: Full access — billing, settings, delete org, all operations. Admin: All operations except billing and org deletion. Member: Deploy, view logs, manage secrets for assigned projects.
How do I invite team members?
Go to Settings → Team → Invite Member. Enter the email address and select a role. The invited user will receive an email with a link to join the organization.
Can I restrict access to specific deployments or projects?
Role permissions apply at the organization level on standard plans. Enterprise plans support granular project-level access controls.
Does NEXUS AI support SSO?
Yes, for Enterprise plans. NEXUS AI supports SAML 2.0 and OIDC-based SSO with providers such as Okta, Azure Active Directory, Google Workspace, and any standards-compliant identity provider. Contact sales to configure SSO for your organization.
What happens if an organization member leaves?
The Owner or Admin can remove the user from Settings → Team. Removing a user immediately revokes their access to all organization resources.
My build failed — what should I check first?
1. Open the build logs — the failure reason is usually in the last 10 lines. 2. Check that your Dockerfile (if custom) has a valid base image. 3. Confirm all required environment variables are set in Settings → Secrets. 4. Check that your application binds to 0.0.0.0 on the port specified (default $PORT).
My app deployed but returns a 502 error
The container started but the application is not responding on the expected port. Check that your app reads the port from the PORT environment variable, your app binds to 0.0.0.0 not 127.0.0.1, and the health check endpoint (if configured) returns HTTP 200.
My cloud provider connection is failing
Check that the credentials you provided in Settings → Providers have the required permissions. See the Cloud Provider Auth documentation for provider-specific permission requirements.
How do I contact support?
Community (Starter): Community forums and GitHub issues. Email (Pro and above): [email protected]. Dedicated (Enterprise): Your assigned support channel with SLA.
About NEXUS AI
NEXUS AI is an agentic AI app builder and full-stack deployment platform. Explore the AI App Builder, learn more on the About page, read the documentation, or contact the team through nexusai.run/contact.
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