Continous operations, as simple as possible, but not simpler

Infrastructure as code (JavaScript) on the most modern runtime. A tool to help you get self-autonomous on your systems, platforms, services. Considering agility, security, quality.

️Talk to the founder

Comparison with other tools

	Pulumi	Kubernetes	Coolify	Terraform	AliaJS
Lines of code	~828K	~3.57M	~291K	~609K	~2K
Dependencies	330	250	353	375	9
Secure vault	Pulumi ESC	No	No	No	Vaultwarden
HTTP service	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Languages	YAML, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, C# Java	Docker & Nix config	HCL, JSON	No	JavaScript ES2025
Turnkey solution	No	No	No	No	No, next coming feature: socket npx aliajs new n8n

Code examples

Certificate Validity Test

/**
  Testing three things: nginx reverse proxy, Node.js service, TLS certificate validity,
  using a test address (new instance) before doing potential breaking DNS records changes.
  - https://github.com/jdecaron/aliajs/blob/main/src/deploy.js#L236-L253
**/
await retry(async () => {
  const response = await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const req = https.request({
      host: address,
      port: 443,
      path: '/404-uc3C6',
      method: 'GET',
      headers: { Host: server_name },
      servername: server_name,
    }, resolve)
    req.on('error', reject)
    req.end()
  })
  response.resume()
  if (response.statusCode !== 404) {
    throw new Error(`Service ${service.name} not responding 404 status`)
  }
})

Backup

  /*
    Vaultwarden backup, running vaultwarden docker container backup command,
    getting the file path, injecting restic S3 secrets, runnning restic backup.
    - https://github.com/jdecaron/aliajs/blob/main/configurations/instances.js#L26-L30
  */
  "backup": [
    {
      command: async ({ c }) => {
        await c.ssh.current({ command: `sudo docker exec vaultwarden /vaultwarden backup` })
        const backupFile = (await c.ssh.current({ command: `ls -t /vw-data/ | head -n1` })).replace(/\s$/, '')

        await c.ssh.current({
          command: `
            export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=${process.env.ALIAJS_DEFAULT_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID};
            export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=${process.env.ALIAJS_DEFAULT_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY};
            export RESTIC_PASSWORD=${process.env.ALIAJS_VARIABLE_2};
            restic -r ${process.env.ALIAJS_DEFAULT_S3_URL}/restic backup
              --stdin --stdin-filename sauce-production-backup
              --tag sauce-production-backup
              < /vw-data/${backupFile}`,
        })
      }
    },
  ],

Active projects by JD Caron

AliaJS

Infrastructe as code with JavaScript 🤖

https://github.com/jdecaron/aliajs

Rollance

Manufacturing company, focused on agility & 無駄.

https://rollance.com

Why

Solving a problem

Around september 2018, a service deterioration happened on a popular PaaS (platform as a service). Support said nothing was wrong. I migrated the service to a cloud, slightly automated with Ansible. As an experiment, I asked, what if I had a tool to manage my cloud infrastructure in the same language the project is written with: JavaScript?

Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch. – Eric S. Raymond

It is incredibly powerful if you solve the problem you actually have yourself. – Tobias Lütke

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. – Linus Torvalds

… look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself. – Paul Graham, “How to Get Startup Ideas”

Reversible and irreversible development

Living in the future means you know that with more security, quality, agility on your deployments, you can leap through a system that allows you to build an reversible environment for things that don’t exist yet: ERP’s, I wanted that.

What is good for coding agents is also good for human coders. Coding agents work well because code is reversible — we have Git and can undo mistakes. The real danger comes when agents act on things you can’t roll back, like production databases or money, where gullibility becomes a catastrophic problem. – Simon Willison

… changeable, reversible – they’re two-way doors. Type 2 decision … you don’t have to live with the consequences for that long. – Jeff Bezos

Composing reversible environments, agentic engineering, as simple as possible code, enables you to be …

… living in the future … If you’re really at the leading edge of a rapidly changing field, there will be things that are obviously missing. – Paul Graham, “How to Get Startup Ideas”

Simple code is good for both humans and agents

This saving is because the agent has to read less code… — Giles Edwards-Alexander, “The Economic Benefit of Refactoring”

Roadmap

Turnkey Solution

Get your favorite service running on a cloud in a few minutes, with one simple command.

socket npx aliajs new n8n

Hybrid, On-Prem & Cloud

Modern hybrid compute, run your most critical deployments on-prem (Oxide, Turing Pi), provide to your organisation a development environment on cloud.

Low Maintenance Platform as a Service

Build a SaaS, PaaS with low dependencies, daily instance refresh, 0 downtime deployments, automatic vulnerability updates.

Lower Cost Sleep System

Automated system to lower your elastic cloud usage, sleep your services when they aren’t used: night, boot on demand, auto-scale.

Growing the self-hosting community together

Let’s collaborate