📋 Prerequisites

• Fork the GitHub repository cloud-tee-starter-template
• Phala Cloud account (Sign up with Redeem Code)
• Docker Hub/Registry account, to push the built docker image to the registry

🔧 Step 1: Configure Repository Secrets

1. Go to your repo Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions
2. Add these required secrets:

Secret Name	Description	How to Get
DOCKER_REGISTRY_USERNAME	Your container registry username	From your Docker Hub/Registry account
DOCKER_REGISTRY_PASSWORD	Registry password/access token	Generate access token
PHALA_CLOUD_API_KEY	Phala Cloud authentication key	From Phala Cloud Dashboard → "Create Token"
APP_NAME	Deployment name (e.g., my-tee-app)	Choose name without special characters except -
DOCKER_IMAGE	Full image path (e.g., docker.io/username/image-name)	Follow registry naming conventions

The above secrets are required for the deployment workflow to work. And you can add more secrets to the repository as needed. These secrets will be used in the deployment workflow to build the docker image and deploy to Phala TEE Cloud. Once the secrets are added, you can trigger the deployment workflow anytime.

🚀 Step 2: Deployment Workflow

The GitHub Action will automatically:

1. Build Docker image from Dockerfile, api-server/Dockerfile in this example.
2. Push built docker image to your container registry
3. Update the docker compose file with the new image
4. Deploy to Phala TEE Cloud using phala CLI with the name you set in APP_NAME with the updated docker compose file.

Trigger Conditions:

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
    paths:  # Only trigger when these files change, you can add more files to the list
      - "api-server/pyproject.toml"
      - "api-server/Dockerfile"
  workflow_dispatch:  # Manual trigger available

If you want to deploy to Phala TEE Cloud manually, you can trigger the workflow manually from the GitHub Actions page.

✅ Step 3: Verify The Deployment

After successful workflow run once the workflow is triggered and the deployment is successful, you can verify the deployment on Phala Cloud Dashboard.

And then you can see the deployment details on the dashboard and visit the endpoint to test the application.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

Common issues:

1. Authentication Errors: Verify all secrets are correctly set
2. Docker Build Failures: Check api-server/Dockerfile syntax
3. Debug Github Actions Locally: You can debug the Github Actions locally by running act command. The act can be installed from https://github.com/nektos/act. The secerts you need to set are the same as the ones in the repository secrets to local .env file in the root of the repository.

🔗 Additional Resources

• Phala Cloud Official Doc
• Phala Cloud CLI GitHub