The manifest

apphaven.yaml, in the root of your repository, describes your application to AppHaven. It declares three things:

• Services: the containers and managed databases your app runs.
• Volumes: the storage those services keep.
• Environment variables: the configuration they run with.

AppHaven validates the manifest and uses it to run your app. To change your app's shape, edit apphaven.yaml and push; the next deploy picks it up.

A complete example

A web service built from the repository's Dockerfile, a managed database, and a persistent volume for uploads:

version: 1

services:
  web:
    type: container
    build:
      dockerfile: Dockerfile       # built from your repository on every deploy
    ports:
      - 3000                       # served on your app's URL
    env:
      NODE_ENV: production
      DATABASE_URL: ${service.db.url}   # a ready-to-use connection URL
    volumes:
      - name: uploads
        mount_path: /app/uploads
    depends_on:
      - service: db
        condition: healthy         # wait until the database accepts connections

  db:
    type: postgres                 # managed database, provisioned by AppHaven
    version: "17"

volumes:
  uploads:
    type: persistent               # kept across deploys

With this manifest, AppHaven builds web from the Dockerfile in your repository, provisions the db database with generated credentials, creates the uploads volume, starts web once the database is ready (with DATABASE_URL set to a real connection URL), and serves port 3000 on your app's URL over HTTPS.

Top-level fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
version	int	no	The manifest schema version. Currently 1, which is also the default.
services	map of name → service spec	yes	Your app's services. At least one is required.
volumes	map of name → volume spec	no	Volumes your services mount. Required only if a service references a volume.

Naming rule

Every name you choose in the manifest (each service name and each volume name) must match:

^[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9_\-]{0,63}$

• Starts with a letter or digit.
• 1–64 characters long.
• Contains only letters, digits, underscores (_), and dashes (-).

tip

Use lowercase service and volume names so they're accepted as written.

Validation

AppHaven validates the manifest before anything is deployed. Validation is strict: an unknown field anywhere in the manifest is rejected with a clear error, so a typo fails fast instead of being silently ignored.

When a manifest is rejected, the message describes the problem. Common causes:

Cause	Example message
An unknown field (often a typo)	service web: unknown field "prots"
A name doesn't match the naming rule	service name "my app!" is invalid
Unknown service type	service web: type "vm" not supported
Container with neither image nor build	service web: image or build is required
A field that isn't valid for the service type	service db: "ports" is not allowed on a postgres service
Port out of range	service web: port 99999 out of range
depends_on cycle	depends_on cycle: web -> db -> web
condition: healthy on a target with no healthcheck	service web depends_on db (healthy) but db has no healthcheck
Reference to an unknown service or field	service web: ${service.cache.url} references unknown service "cache"
Reference to an undeclared volume	service web: references undeclared volume "missing"
Non-canonical mount path	service web: mount_path "/a/../b" must be canonical
Unknown volume type	volume cache: type "weird" not supported

Where to go next

• Services: containers and managed databases.
• Volumes: durable and scratch storage.
• Environment variables: configuration and secrets.
• Manifest reference: every valid field, on one page.
• Getting started: deploy an app built from this manifest.