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Live. This area is documented as current, user-reliable behavior.

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Goal

Wire services together with explicit connections instead of hardcoded URLs.

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Prerequisites

  • An application with at least two services

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Workflow

1
Open the application and choose Connect.
2
Pick the service that needs access, the target service or database, and the environment variable name.
3
Redeploy the source service — the dashboard flags it until the new variable is applied.
4
Read the variable in your code exactly like any other environment variable.

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Public and private services

  • Public services get a stackshift.app URL and answer to the internet.
  • Private services have no public URL at all — not a hidden one, none. They are reachable only from services in the same application.
  • Workers, scheduled jobs, and databases are always private.
  • Flipping a service to private removes its public routes; flipping it back assigns a fresh URL.

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How internal traffic works

  • Every service gets an internal hostname: <service>.<application-network>.stackshift.internal.
  • Internal hostnames only resolve inside your application network — they do not exist on public DNS.
  • Traffic between applications is blocked at the platform level, so another tenant can never reach your private services.
  • The same internal URL works whether the target runs in a standard container or a Kata MicroVM.

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Expected result

The source service reads something like API_URL=http://api.myapp-1a2b3c4d.stackshift.internal:8080 and calls its sibling over the private network.

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Common failures

  • the variable is missing at runtime: redeploy the source service after adding the connection.
  • the target does not define a port: set a port on the target service, then reconnect.
  • your own environment variable overrides the connection: the dashboard warns you when a variable you set shadows an injected one.
  • a database connection points at the database host, not an internal hostname: managed databases are reached through their database endpoint, and the injected URL includes credentials — treat it as a secret.

Build a multi-service application

Create an application, add public and private services from one repo or many, and let each service deploy independently while sharing one private network.

Project environment, domains, and previews

Configure the project surfaces that most often decide whether a deployment works after it builds, including runtime shape, domains, previews, and storage.