App development

How to package your own service as an SHC app. Audience: app authors who want their service to install, upgrade, back up, and integrate cleanly.

For operating SHC itself, see ../guide/. For how the runtime works under the hood, see ../architecture/.

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• Creating apps — walkthrough from zero to a deployable app
• App definition — app.yaml schema: name, version, vars, category
• Source resolution — how SHC finds your compose.yaml / stack.yaml

• Plugs and sockets — declarative dependencies between apps
• Bundled services — when to ship a cache or datastore in your own compose instead of integrating, and what that means for backup
• VApps — Virtual Apps that extend other apps (e.g. Traefik’s ACME plugin)
• Presets — versioned variable bundles published by an app (the install-time catalog)

• Lifecycle hooks — pre/post install, upgrade, uninstall, backup, restore
• Credential reconciliation — make vault the source of truth for an app’s persisted credential so it can be rotated without lockout

• App catalog — every bundled sample app, grouped by category
• Architecture: app module — how SHC internalizes app definitions
• Architecture: stack module — how apps become running stacks