How AI Builds Work in Openship

When you run openship deploy, a lot happens before your app goes live. Here's how the AI build system works.

Step 1: Framework detection

Openship scans your project for signals:

package.json scripts and dependencies
Config files (next.config.js, nuxt.config.ts, Cargo.toml, etc.)
Dockerfile presence
Directory structure patterns

This produces a confidence-scored framework match. If Openship detects Next.js with 95% confidence, it uses the Next.js build pipeline. If there's a Dockerfile, it uses that directly.

Step 2: Config generation

Based on the detected framework, Openship generates:

Build command - npm run build, go build, etc.
Start command - npm start, ./server, etc.
Port mapping - Detects which port your app listens on
Environment variables - Suggests required vars based on framework conventions

You can override any of these in openship.json.

Step 3: Build optimization

The AI layer optimizes the build:

Layer caching - Dependency layers are cached separately from source code
Multi-stage builds - Production images exclude dev dependencies
Parallel builds - Multi-service projects build concurrently

Step 4: Health checks

After deployment, Openship verifies:

The container starts successfully
The health check endpoint responds
SSL is provisioned and valid

If any check fails, the deployment is rolled back automatically.

What's next

We're working on AI-powered diagnostics - when a build fails, Openship will analyze the error and suggest fixes. Stay tuned.