Deployment

Slidev MCP runs as a Docker Compose stack on a single VM. This guide covers production deployment with Let's Encrypt TLS.

Prerequisites

• A Linux VM with Docker and Docker Compose v2 installed
• A domain name pointed at the VM's IP address (e.g. mcp.example.com)
• Optionally, a second domain for slides (e.g. slides.example.com) for origin isolation

Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/joelbarmettlerUZH/slidev-mcp.git
cd slidev-mcp

# Create your .env file
cp .env.example .env

Edit .env with your production values:

DOMAIN=mcp.example.com
SLIDES_DOMAIN=slides.example.com   # Optional, for origin isolation
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=a-strong-password
ACME_EMAIL=you@example.com

Start the stack:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Traefik will automatically obtain TLS certificates via Let's Encrypt. Your MCP server is now available at:

https://mcp.example.com/mcp

Services

The stack runs 6 services:

Service	Purpose
Traefik	TLS termination, routing, rate limiting
MCP Server	FastMCP server, build orchestration
Builder	Isolated Bun + Slidev build container (no network access)
PostgreSQL	Build metadata and garbage collection
Nginx	Static file serving for built slides

Verify

Check that all services are running:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml ps

Test the MCP endpoint:

curl https://mcp.example.com/mcp

Updates

Pull the latest images and restart:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Backups

Back up the PostgreSQL database and slide files:

# Database
docker compose exec postgres pg_dump -U slidev slidev > backup.sql

# Slide files (optional — they can be rebuilt)
docker compose cp nginx:/data/slides ./slides-backup/

See Configuration for all available environment variables.