Simplify Commands: How to add and use alias in Kamal?

With the introduction of aliases in Kamal 2.0 it’s easier to add aliases to the deploy.yml file and run them using the kamal command.

Kamal setup provides a few default aliases like console, shell, logs, and dbc. You can add your own aliases to the deploy.yml file.

# config/deploy.yml
aliases:
  console: app exec --interactive --reuse "bin/rails console"
  shell: app exec --interactive --reuse "bash"
  logs: app logs -f
  dbc: app exec --interactive --reuse "bin/rails dbconsole"

Now you can run the alias using the kamal command.

Open rails console

$ kamal console

Loading production environment (Rails 8.0.1)
meetup(prod)> Post.count
# => 1

Open bash

$ kamal shell

rails@37:/rails$ ls
Gemfile  Gemfile.lock  README.md  Rakefile  app  bin  config  config.ru  db  lib  log  public  script  storage  test  tmp  vendor

See rails app logs

$ kamal logs

INFO Following logs on 37.xx.xxx.xx.

Open rails dbconsole (sqlite, psql or whatever database you are using)

$ kamal dbc

SQLite version 3.40.1 2022-12-28 14:03:47
Enter ".help" for usage hints.

sqlite> select count(*) from posts;
1