Layers

Overview

Relight uses a layer-based model. Every operation targets a specific layer, and each layer is handled by a provider:

Layer	What it does	Flag
app	Container deployment and management	--compute <name>
db	Database provisioning and access	--db <name>
dns	Domain and DNS record management	--dns <name>
registry	Container image storage	(follows app provider)

Provider resolution

When you run a command, Relight resolves which provider handles each required layer using this priority:

1. Explicit flag - --compute gcp, --db do, --dns cf
2. Project link - .relight.yaml in the current directory (set by relight deploy)
3. Config defaults - set with relight providers default
4. Auto-resolve - if only one configured provider supports the layer, it’s used automatically

Cross-provider stacks

Different layers can use different providers. Common setups:

# App on GCP, database on DigitalOcean, DNS on Cloudflare
relight deploy myapp . --compute gcp --dns cf
relight db create mydb --db do
relight db attach mydb myapp

The .relight.yaml link file remembers the provider choices for each layer so you don’t need to repeat flags:

app: myapp
compute: gcp
dns: cf
db: mydb
dbProvider: do

Registry layer

The registry layer follows the app provider by default. Full-stack providers (gcp, aws, azure) and Cloudflare use their native container registries.

Listing providers by layer

relight providers    # shows all providers with their supported layers