Manifest Reference

ship-manifest.toml is the single configuration file for a fleet. This page lists every section; the concept pages cover behavior in depth.

Top-level layout

[mothership]                  # global settings
[mothership.bind]             # named external listeners
[[mothership.static_dirs]]    # static file serving
[[mothership.uplinks]]        # pre-flight dependency checks
[[mothership.prelaunch]]      # setup jobs before launch
[mothership.flagship]         # multi-server coordination
[mothership.cors_cache]       # CORS preflight cache
[mothership.rate_limiting]    # optional rate limiting

[base.ship]                   # template inherited by all ships
[base.bay]                    # template inherited by all bays
[base.module]                 # template inherited by all modules

[[fleet.GROUP]]               # ships, grouped by name of your choice
[[bays.BAYTYPE]]              # bays (docking protocol)
[[modules]]                   # WASM payloads

A .env file next to the manifest is loaded before parsing; existing process environment variables are never overridden. $VAR expansion works in binds, env values, uplink URLs, and election settings.

[mothership]

Key	Type	Default	Description
metrics_port	u16	off	Prometheus metrics + /health port
compression	bool	false	gzip/deflate/brotli response compression
cors_cache	bool/table	false	CORS preflight cache (see Routing)

[mothership.bind]

Any key name maps to a listener address:

[mothership.bind]
http = "0.0.0.0:80"
https = { addr = "0.0.0.0:443", proxy_protocol = true }
admin = "unix:///tmp/admin.sock"

See Routing.

[[mothership.static_dirs]]

Key	Type	Default	Description
path	string	required	Local directory
prefix	string	–	URL prefix (longest prefix wins, falls through to routes)
bind	string	all binds	Limit serving to one bind

[[mothership.uplinks]]

Key	Type	Default	Description
url	string	required	postgres://, mysql://, redis://, memgraph://, neo4j://, http(s)://, or tcp://
name	string	required	Name used in logs/errors
timeout	string	"5s"	Connection timeout

See Prelaunch & Uplinks.

[[mothership.prelaunch]]

Key	Type	Default	Description
name	string	required	Unique identifier
command	string	required	Command to execute
args	string[]	[]	Arguments
env	table	{}	Environment variables
depends_on	string[]	[]	Prelaunch jobs to wait for

[mothership.flagship]

Key	Type	Default	Description
enabled	bool	false	Enable flagship coordination
election	string	"static"	"static" or "postgres"
app_name	string	–	Election namespace (required for postgres)
election_url	string	–	PostgreSQL URL
static_flagship	string/table	–	"$VAR" or { command, equals }
prelaunch_timeout	u64	300	Seconds escorts wait
election_timeout	u64	30	Seconds to acquire the lock

See Flagship.

[mothership.rate_limiting]

Key	Type	Default	Description
global_rps	f64	unlimited	Global requests per second
per_ip_rpm	f64	unlimited	Per-IP requests per minute

[[fleet.GROUP]] — ships

Key	Type	Default	Description
name	string	required	Unique identifier (ASCII, no spaces)
command	string	required	Command to execute
args	string[]	[]	Arguments
cwd	string	inherited	Working directory
bind	string	–	tcp://host:port, unix:///path, or port
healthcheck	string	–	Health check path
healthcheck_initial_delay	u64	30	Seconds before the first check
routes	array	[]	Routes (see below)
depends_on	string[]	[]	Ships/bays to wait for
env	table	{}	Environment variables
critical	bool	true	Crash kills the fleet
oneshot	bool	false	Run once and exit
tags	string[]	[]	Tags for --only / --except

[[bays.BAYTYPE]] — bays

Same as ships minus bind/healthcheck/oneshot, plus:

Key	Type	Default	Description
config	table	{}	Config delivered via the docking protocol

See Bays.

routes entries

Key	Type	Default	Description
bind	string	required	A key from [mothership.bind]
pattern	string	required	Regex matched against the path
strip_prefix	string	–	Prefix removed before forwarding
ua_filter	string	–	browser, chromium, firefox, safari, llm, bot, or ~regex

Shorthand: routes = ["http:/api/.*", "ws:/cable"].

[[modules]] — WASM payloads

Key	Type	Default	Description
name	string	required	Unique identifier
wasm	string	required	Path to .wasm file
routes	string[]	[]	Regex patterns
phase	string	"request"	request or response
config	table	{}	String key-value config
tags	string[]	[]	Tags for filtering

See WASM Payloads.

[base.*] templates

[base.ship], [base.bay], and [base.module] provide defaults inherited by every ship, bay, and module respectively. Scalar values are overridable per entry; tags are merged:

[base.ship]
env = { RAILS_ENV = "production" }
critical = true
tags = ["ruby"]

[[fleet.web]]
name = "app"
command = "ruby"
tags = ["web"]  # effective: ["ruby", "web"]