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Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/RubenDarioGuerreroNeira/Ecosistema-IA-Colombia/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Salud IA Bot is a NestJS application that reads health data exclusively from a pre-seeded SQLite database (data/salud-ia-bot.db). Because XML is never parsed at runtime, the production process is straightforward: build the TypeScript source, supply environment variables, ensure the database file is present, and start the compiled output. This page walks through every step.

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Prerequisites

Before deploying, confirm the following are in place:
  • Node.js 20+ and npm installed on the target host
  • A pre-seeded data/salud-ia-bot.db file (see Data Seeding)
  • A Telegram bot token obtained from @BotFather
  • An OpenRouter API key from openrouter.ai
  • (Optional) A persistent disk or volume mount if deploying to a platform-as-a-service provider

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Build Process

The build script in package.json delegates to the NestJS CLI: 
npm run build
Under the hood this runs nest build, which compiles all TypeScript sources under src/ into the dist/ directory using the configuration defined in tsconfig.json (target: ES2022, outDir: ./dist). The NestJS CLI option deleteOutDir: true in nest-cli.json ensures any previous build artefacts are removed before each compile. Once the build succeeds, start the server with either of these commands: 
# Using the npm script alias
npm run start:prod

# Or invoking the compiled entry-point directly
node dist/main
Both are equivalent — start:prod is defined in package.json as node dist/main.

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Environment Variables

All required and optional configuration is read from environment variables at startup. In local development these are loaded from a .env file; in production, set them directly in your hosting platform’s dashboard or secrets manager.
VariableRequiredDefaultDescription
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN✅ Yes-Token issued by @BotFather for your Telegram bot
OPENROUTER_API_KEY✅ Yes-API key for OpenRouter (routes requests to LLaMA 3.1)
OPENROUTER_MODELNometa-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-InstructOverride the LLM model slug
PORTNo3000HTTP port exposed by the NestJS server
TELEGRAM_PROXY_URLNo-HTTP/SOCKS proxy URL for restricted networks
TELEGRAM_API_TIMEOUTNo-Request timeout (ms) for Telegram API calls
Never commit your TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN or OPENROUTER_API_KEY to source control. Use environment secrets or a secrets manager in production.

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Deploying to Render

Render is the recommended platform-as-a-service for Salud IA Bot because it supports persistent disks, which are required to preserve the SQLite database file across deployments.
1

Create a new Web Service

Log in to render.com and click New -> Web Service.
2

Connect your GitHub repository

Authorize Render to access your GitHub account and select the Ecosistema-IA-Colombia repository.
3

Configure build and start commands

Set the Build Command to:
npm install && npm run build
Set the Start Command to:
npm run start:prod
4

Add environment variables

In the Render dashboard, navigate to Environment and add all required variables: TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, and any optional overrides.
5

Mount a persistent disk

Under Disks, add a new disk and mount it at the project root so that the data/ directory — and therefore data/salud-ia-bot.db — persists across deploys and restarts. Without this, the database file is lost whenever the service restarts.
6

Upload or seed the database

Before the first deploy completes, transfer your locally seeded data/salud-ia-bot.db to the mounted disk via Render’s shell or by using a pre-deploy script. The application will not start correctly without this file present.
7

Deploy

Trigger a deploy. Render will run the build command, then start the server with node dist/main. Monitor the logs to confirm the NestJS bootstrap message and Telegram bot registration succeed.

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Deploying to Railway

Railway can also host Salud IA Bot. The steps mirror Render:
  1. Create a new project and link your repository.
  2. Set the same build (npm install && npm run build) and start (npm run start:prod) commands in the service settings.
  3. Add environment variables under Variables.
  4. Use a Volume attached to the service at the path containing data/ to persist the SQLite file.

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Self-Hosted Node.js Server

For a VPS or dedicated server running Ubuntu/Debian: 
# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/RubenDarioGuerreroNeira/Ecosistema-IA-Colombia.git salud-ia-bot
cd salud-ia-bot

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Build
npm run build

# 4. Copy the pre-seeded database into place
mkdir -p data
cp /path/to/your/salud-ia-bot.db data/

# 5. Export environment variables
export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your_token
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your_key

# 6. Start
npm run start:prod
Use a process manager such as PM2 to keep the process alive across reboots: 
pm2 start dist/main.js --name salud-ia-bot
pm2 save
pm2 startup

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Health Check

The NestJS application exposes an HTTP server on PORT (default 3000). A GET / request returns 200 OK from the root AppController. Use this endpoint for uptime monitoring and platform health checks. 
curl http://localhost:3000/

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Memory Considerations

The application uses better-sqlite3 (version ^12.11.1), a synchronous, high-performance SQLite binding for Node.js. Because XML is parsed only during the one-time seed step — never at runtime — the production process has a very small startup footprint. Expected resident memory usage is approximately 150-300 MB depending on total dataset size and the number of concurrent requests being served.
Do NOT run synchronize: true in the TypeORM production configuration. The schema is managed exclusively by the seed scripts (scripts/import-data.ts, scripts/seed-antioquia.ts, scripts/seed-vaccination.ts). Enabling synchronize in production could silently drop or alter your data tables, causing permanent data loss. The production database module already enforces synchronize: false.

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