nself functions

Deploy, invoke, and monitor serverless functions running on the Functions optional service.

Quick start

# List all deployed functions
nself functions list

# Deploy a function from the current directory
nself functions deploy send-welcome-email

# Invoke a function and print the response
nself functions invoke send-welcome-email --data '{"userId":"123"}'

Synopsis

nself functions list [FLAGS]
nself functions deploy <NAME> [FLAGS]
nself functions invoke <NAME> [FLAGS]
nself functions logs <NAME> [FLAGS]

Description

nself functions manages the serverless Functions optional service. Functions are small, single-purpose HTTP handlers deployed into the nSelf runtime. They run inside the same Docker network as the rest of the stack, so they can query Postgres directly, call Hasura, or access any other service without going through the public internet.

Functions are stored in the functions/ directory at your project root. Each function is a subdirectory with an index.ts (or index.js) entry point. The runtime is Deno-based by default, with Node.js compatibility available via a flag.

The Functions service must be enabled in your environment before deploying. Run nself service enable functions if it is not already running.

Subcommands

nself functions list

Print all deployed functions, their runtime, status, and last deploy time.

nself functions list
# NAME                   RUNTIME   STATUS    DEPLOYED
# send-welcome-email     deno      running   2026-05-07 09:00
# process-webhook        deno      running   2026-05-06 14:30
# nightly-report         deno      stopped   2026-05-01 08:00

nself functions deploy <NAME>

Deploy or redeploy the named function. The CLI bundles thefunctions/<NAME>/ directory and sends it to the Functions service. If the function already exists, the running version is replaced with zero downtime.

nself functions deploy send-welcome-email
# Bundling functions/send-welcome-email/...
# Deploying to Functions service...
# send-welcome-email deployed. URL: https://api.local.nself.org/functions/v1/send-welcome-email

nself functions invoke <NAME>

Send an HTTP POST to the named function and print the response. Useful for manual testing and debugging without needing a separate HTTP client.

nself functions invoke send-welcome-email --data '{"userId":"abc123"}'
nself functions invoke process-webhook --data @payload.json
nself functions invoke health-check --method GET

nself functions logs <NAME>

Stream live logs from a running function. Output includes timestamps and log levels.

nself functions logs send-welcome-email
# 2026-05-07T09:01:23Z  INFO  Function invoked with userId=abc123
# 2026-05-07T09:01:23Z  INFO  Email queued successfully
# ^C to stop

Flags

Examples

Deploy all functions at once

for fn in functions/*/; do
  name=$(basename "$fn")
  nself functions deploy "$name"
done

Invoke with a JSON file payload

nself functions invoke process-order --data @test/fixtures/order.json

Watch logs while running integration tests

nself functions logs send-welcome-email &
pnpm test:integration
kill %1

Tail the last 100 lines then exit

nself functions logs nightly-report --tail 100 --follow=false

List functions as JSON for automation

nself functions list --json | jq '[.[] | select(.status == "stopped") | .name]'

Environment variables

• NSELF_ENV — default target environment
• FUNCTIONS_JWT_SECRET — JWT secret used to authorize function invocations (set in env files)

Exit codes

• 0 — success
• 1 — generic error (service not running, deploy failed)
• 2 — invalid arguments or function not found
• For invoke: the HTTP response status is printed; a non-2xx response does not by itself cause a non-zero exit unless --fail is passed.

Related

• nself service — enable or disable the Functions optional service
• nself logs — logs for core services (Hasura, Postgres, etc.)
• nself exec — shell into a service container