Persistent storage

Everything an app writes inside its container is reset on every deploy. For files that must stay, give the app a volume:

vibe deploy --volume

or in vibe.json:

{ "name": "notes", "volume": true }

The app finds the volume at /data; the path is also in DATA_DIR. Use it for SQLite files, uploads and anything else worth keeping:

import path from 'node:path';
const dbFile = path.join(process.env.DATA_DIR || './data', 'app.db');

How it behaves

• One volume per app, 2 GB. Writing beyond that fails with ENOSPC (no space left on device). The size cannot be changed.
• Survives deploys, restarts and server reboots.
• Writable for any user, so images that don’t run as root work too.
• During a deploy the old and the new version briefly run at the same time and share the volume. SQLite handles that with its file locks.
• Never removed by accident. Removing volume from vibe.json keeps the existing volume mounted.
• vibe status <name> shows its size, mount path and state.

Another mount path

{ "name": "notes", "volume": { "mountPath": "/app/uploads" } }

The path must be absolute and cannot be /, /app, /tmp, /home, /var, /opt, /srv or a system directory. Subdirectories like /app/uploads are fine.

Deleting the data

vibe volume rm notes --yes

Danger

This deletes every file on the volume, and there is no backup. Deleting the app (vibe rm) also deletes its volume.

Volume or database?

A volume with SQLite is the simplest choice for a single app. Use a managed PostgreSQL when several apps share data, when you need concurrent writes from many requests, or when your framework expects Postgres. Use Redis for caches, rate limits, queues and pub/sub.