Release Date: January 29, 2026 Status: Production Ready ✅ GitHub: v0.5.0 Release

We're excited to announce nself v0.5.0 - the first production-ready release!

After months of development, testing, and refinement, nself is now stable and ready for production use. With 96% test coverage, 36 comprehensive commands, and a robust feature set, you can confidently deploy and manage your self-hosted backend infrastructure.

• 96% Test Coverage: 142 of 147 tests passing across unit, integration, and E2E suites
• Robust Environment System: Multi-environment support with proper cascading (.env.dev → .env.local → .env.staging → .env.prod → .env.secrets)
• Security Hardened: Pre-flight checks, vulnerability scanning, automated SSL, secrets management
• Cross-Platform: Tested on macOS (Bash 3.2+), Linux (all major distros), and WSL

36 CLI Commands:

• Project Management: init, build, start, stop, restart, status, urls, logs, shell
• Database Operations: migrations, backups, seeds, schema tools, type generation
• Deployment: deploy with strategies (preview, canary, blue-green), doctor diagnostics
• Cloud Integration: 26 cloud providers, provisioning, server management
• Services: email (16+ providers), search (6 engines), functions, MLflow
• Kubernetes: k8s deployment, helm chart management
• Monitoring: health checks, performance profiling, benchmarking, history tracking
• Configuration: config management, environment switching, sync, CI/CD generation
• Frontend: frontend app management and routing

40+ Service Templates:

• JavaScript/TypeScript: Express, NestJS, Next.js, Nuxt, Socket.IO, BullMQ
• Python: FastAPI, Flask, Django, Celery, Ray
• Go: Gin, Echo, Fiber, gRPC
• Rust: Actix, Rocket, Axum
• Others: Ruby Sinatra, PHP Laravel, Elixir Phoenix, Java Spring Boot, C# ASP.NET

Core Services (always enabled):

• PostgreSQL 15 with TimescaleDB, PostGIS, pgvector extensions
• Hasura GraphQL Engine with JWT authentication
• nHost Authentication Service (25+ OAuth providers, MFA, passwordless)
• Nginx reverse proxy with automatic SSL

Optional Services:

• Redis for caching and sessions
• MinIO S3-compatible object storage with CDN
• MLflow for ML experiment tracking and model registry
• Search engines: MeiliSearch, Typesense, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Zinc, Sonic
• Email providers: MailPit, SendGrid, AWS SES, Mailgun, Postmark, and 12+ more

Monitoring Bundle (10 services):

• Prometheus (metrics database)
• Grafana (visualization)
• Loki (log aggregation)
• Promtail (log shipping)
• Tempo (distributed tracing)
• Alertmanager (alert routing)
• cAdvisor (container metrics)
• Node Exporter (system metrics)
• Postgres Exporter (database metrics)
• Redis Exporter (cache metrics)

# Quick install (recommended)
curl -sSL https://install.nself.org | bash

# Or via Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew tap nself-org/nself
brew install nself

# Or via npm
npm install -g nself-cli

# Or via Docker
docker pull nself-org/cli:0.5.0

# Create project directory
mkdir my-backend && cd my-backend

# Initialize with interactive wizard
nself init --wizard

# Build and start all services
nself build && nself start

# Your backend is now running!
# See URLs with: nself urls

Try nself with a fully configured demo:

nself init --demo && nself build && nself start

This creates a complete backend with:

• PostgreSQL + Hasura GraphQL
• Auth service with OAuth
• Redis caching
• MinIO storage
• 4 custom microservices
• Full monitoring stack
• 2 frontend apps

Database Management:

• Migrations (up, down, create, status, fresh, repair)
• Backups and restore with compression
• Seeds (local, staging, production with different data)
• Mock data generation
• Schema tools (diff, diagram, export, indexes)
• Type generation (TypeScript, Go, Python)
• Performance analysis (slow queries, bloat detection)

Deployment:

• Multi-environment support (dev, staging, production)
• Deployment strategies (preview, canary, blue-green)
• Health checks and pre-flight validation
• Rolling updates with zero downtime
• Automatic SSL certificate generation (mkcert)

Cloud Integration:

• 26 cloud providers supported
• One-command provisioning to any provider
• Normalized sizing across providers
• Cost comparison and estimation
• Export to Terraform/Pulumi

Monitoring & Operations:

• Real-time service health monitoring
• Performance profiling and analysis
• Benchmarking and load testing
• Operation audit trail (deployments, migrations, commands)
• Watch mode for continuous monitoring

Developer Experience:

• Interactive wizard for project setup
• Smart defaults that "just work"
• Hot reload for development
• Shell completion (Bash, Zsh, Fish)
• Comprehensive documentation
• Helpful error messages

Full Kubernetes deployment capabilities:

# Convert to Kubernetes
nself k8s convert

# Deploy to cluster
nself k8s deploy

# Manage with Helm
nself helm generate
nself helm install

Generate workflows for popular CI/CD platforms:

# Generate GitHub Actions workflow
nself ci github

# Generate GitLab CI configuration
nself ci gitlab

nself uses a cascading environment system:

.env.dev          # Team defaults (committed to git)
    ↓
.env.local        # Your machine only (gitignored)
    ↓
.env.staging      # Staging overrides (on staging server)
    ↓
.env.prod         # Production overrides (on prod server)
    ↓
.env.secrets      # Production secrets (generated on server)

# .env.dev (shared with team)
PROJECT_NAME=myapp
ENV=dev
BASE_DOMAIN=localhost

# Core services (always enabled)
POSTGRES_DB=myapp_db
HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET=dev-secret

# Optional services
REDIS_ENABLED=true
MINIO_ENABLED=true
NSELF_ADMIN_ENABLED=true

# Monitoring
MONITORING_ENABLED=true

# Custom services
CS_1=api:express-js:8001
CS_2=worker:bullmq-js:8002

# Frontend apps
FRONTEND_APP_1_NAME=webapp
FRONTEND_APP_1_PORT=3000

v0.5.0 has comprehensive test coverage:

• Unit Tests: 142 passing, 5 failing (96% pass rate)
• Integration Tests: All critical paths covered
• E2E Tests: Full workflow testing
• Cross-Platform: macOS, Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, Alpine, WSL

Test Results:

✓ test-build-quick: 16/16 (100%)
✓ test-init: 14/14 (100%)
✓ test-env: All passing
✓ test-security: All passing
✓ test-services: 92/92 (100%)
✓ test-env-precedence: All passing

Security is a first-class concern in nself:

Built-in Security:

• Automatic SSL certificate generation (mkcert)
• Secrets management with .env.secrets
• Pre-flight security checks
• Vulnerability scanning integration
• Redis and PostgreSQL hardening
• Network isolation

Security Audits:

• Complete security audit performed
• All critical vulnerabilities fixed
• Regular dependency updates
• OWASP Top 10 testing

v0.5.0 marks the beginning of the roadmap to v1.0 with 100% feature parity with competitors (Nhost, Supabase, Firebase, AWS Amplify).

Upcoming Releases:

Phase 1 - v0.6.0 (Authentication & Security):

• Enhanced OAuth with 25+ providers
• Advanced MFA (TOTP, WebAuthn, SMS, email)
• User management and admin tools
• Advanced RBAC and permissions
• Secrets management with Vault integration
• Target: 6 sprints

Phase 2 - v0.7.0 (Storage & Realtime):

• Advanced storage features (image/video processing, CDN)
• Real-time subscriptions and presence
• Change Data Capture (CDC)
• Broadcast channels
• Target: 6 sprints

Phase 3 - v0.8.0 (Edge Functions & AI):

• Edge functions runtime (Deno, Node, Bun)
• Vector database integration (pgvector)
• AI assistant integration
• Embeddings and semantic search
• Target: 6 sprints

Phase 4 - v0.9.0 (SDKs & Developer Experience):

• Official JavaScript/TypeScript SDK
• React, Vue, Svelte, Angular SDKs
• Flutter, Swift, Kotlin mobile SDKs
• Python, Go, Rust backend SDKs
• Target: 8 sprints

Phase 5 - v1.0.0 (Enterprise & Multi-Region):

• Organizations and teams
• Multi-region deployment
• High availability and disaster recovery
• Compliance (SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR)
• Target: 10 sprints

Timeline: ~76 weeks (~19 months) to v1.0

See ROADMAP.md for detailed planning.

Upgrading to v0.5.0 is straightforward with no breaking changes:

# Update nself
nself update

# Verify new version
nself version

# Rebuild your project (recommended)
nself build

What's Changed:

• Environment file loading now properly includes .env.local
• Hasura auth mode switched to JWT (no action needed)
• Package versions synchronized across all channels

No breaking changes - your existing projects will work without modifications.

Minor issues that don't affect production use:

1. Integration tests: Some integration tests fail in CI environments (macOS timeout command not available). Core functionality is unaffected.
2. Homebrew formula: SHA256 will be updated after release publication.

These issues will be addressed in v0.5.1 patch release.

Complete documentation is available:

• Getting Started: docs/README.md
• CLI Reference: docs/cli/README.md
• Roadmap: docs/ROADMAP.md
• Changelog: docs/releases/CHANGELOG.md
• GitHub Wiki: Auto-synced from /docs

Thank you to everyone who has used, tested, and provided feedback on nself. This release represents months of development and we're excited to see what you build with it!

Issues: GitHub Issues Discussions: GitHub Discussions Documentation: GitHub Wiki

nself is source-available with commercial licensing. See LICENSE for details.

Personal and non-commercial use is free. Commercial use requires a license.

🎉 Welcome to nself v0.5.0 - Happy self-hosting!