Nest.JS deploy to Heroku

Question

I'm currently trying to deploy the basic starter template generated by the Nest.JS CLI (as of version 5.3.0) and seem to be getting a timeout on app startup. I'm wondering if anyone has managed to deploy to Heroku?

I'm not sure whether or not I need to include some kind of Procfile?

Also, there doesn't seem to be much info around deploying the Nest.JS

The Heroku logs when I try to deploy.

heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command `npm start`
app[web.1]: 
app[web.1]: > [email protected] start /app
app[web.1]: > ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts
app[web.1]: 
app[web.1]: [Nest] 21   - 2018-10-16 06:52:17   [NestFactory] Starting Nest application...
app[web.1]: [Nest] 21   - 2018-10-16 06:52:17   [InstanceLoader] AppModule dependencies initialized +21ms
app[web.1]: [Nest] 21   - 2018-10-16 06:52:17   [RoutesResolver] AppController {/}: +48ms
app[web.1]: [Nest] 21   - 2018-10-16 06:52:17   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/, GET} route +7ms
app[web.1]: [Nest] 21   - 2018-10-16 06:52:17   [NestApplication] Nest application successfully started +3ms
app[web.1]: Error waiting for process to terminate: No child processes
heroku[web.1]: Error R10 (Boot timeout) -> Web process failed to bind to $PORT within 60 seconds of launch
heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGKILL
heroku[web.1]: Process exited with status 22
heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to crashed
heroku[web.1]: State changed from crashed to starting

my package.json file is below...

{
  "name": "testy",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "description": "description",
  "author": "",
  "license": "MIT",
  "scripts": {
    "format": "prettier --write \"src/**/*.ts\"",
    "start": "ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts",
    "start:dev": "nodemon",
    "start:debug": "nodemon --config nodemon-debug.json",
    "prestart:prod": "rimraf dist && tsc",
    "start:prod": "node dist/main.js",
    "start:hmr": "node dist/server",
    "lint": "tslint -p tsconfig.json -c tslint.json",
    "test": "jest",
    "test:watch": "jest --watch",
    "test:cov": "jest --coverage",
    "test:e2e": "jest --config ./test/jest-e2e.json",
    "webpack": "webpack --config webpack.config.js"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@nestjs/common": "^5.1.0",
    "@nestjs/core": "^5.1.0",
    "reflect-metadata": "^0.1.12",
    "rxjs": "^6.2.2",
    "typescript": "^3.0.1"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@nestjs/testing": "^5.1.0",
    "@types/express": "^4.16.0",
    "@types/jest": "^23.3.1",
    "@types/node": "^10.7.1",
    "@types/supertest": "^2.0.5",
    "jest": "^23.5.0",
    "nodemon": "^1.18.3",
    "prettier": "^1.14.2",
    "rimraf": "^2.6.2",
    "supertest": "^3.1.0",
    "ts-jest": "^23.1.3",
    "ts-loader": "^4.4.2",
    "ts-node": "^7.0.1",
    "tsconfig-paths": "^3.5.0",
    "tslint": "5.11.0",
    "webpack": "^4.16.5",
    "webpack-cli": "^3.1.0",
    "webpack-node-externals": "^1.7.2"
  },
  "jest": {
    "moduleFileExtensions": [
      "js",
      "json",
      "ts"
    ],
    "rootDir": "src",
    "testRegex": ".spec.ts$",
    "transform": {
      "^.+\\.(t|j)s$": "ts-jest"
    },
    "coverageDirectory": "../coverage",
    "testEnvironment": "node"
  }
}

If anyone has any experience in deploying this stack it'd be great to hear from you

Answer 1

Heroku assigns you a port by default and adds the port to the environment variables (env), so you can set the port to a fixed number, you need to change your main file to:

import { NestFactory } from '@nestjs/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);
  await app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000);
}
bootstrap();