Production deployment checklist

Best practices for running an enterprise-grade self-hosted Lightdash deployment with the official Helm chart.

This is the checklist for running a production-grade, self-hosted Lightdash deployment with the official Helm chart (lightdash/helm-charts). The guide is intended for platform/devops engineers deploying their own Lightdash instance. The guide gives you 3-tiers of deployments with increasing configuration options.

Tier
Tier 1	Recommended for evaluating Lightdash or a PoC
Tier 2	A best practice scalable production deployment
Tier 3	Optional features and observability

Tier 1: Evaluation Deployment

Follow the self-hosting guide (or docker compose for a local spin-up) for a minimum production setup suitable for evaluating Lightdash.

Prerequisites

• External PostgreSQL — postgresql.enabled: false even for a PoC; a small managed instance is fine, no HA or backup requirements yet
• S3-compatible object storage — required regardless; Lightdash fails to start without it
• Enterprise license key if you’re evaluating Enterprise features — needs outbound access to https://api.keygen.sh

Checklist

• Deploy with the self-hosting guide
• Pin an image version - pin image.tag to the latest version
• Set SITE_URL to your final https:// URL before first boot
• Generate a strong LIGHTDASH_SECRET and store it somewhere durable - losing it means losing access to encrypted data
• SECURE_COOKIES and TRUST_PROXY both "true" behind your TLS-terminating load balancer
• Headless browser enabled (the chart default) - image previews, PDF exports, Slack unfurls
• HTTPS end-to-end via your ingress or load balancer
• AI Analyst — model provider key + pgvector in Postgres

Tier 2: Scalable deployment

None of these steps are required but are recommended for running Lightdash beyond a PoC.

Operations

• Choose upgrade strategy — pinned image tag, at least monthly cadence

Workers and scaling

• Data apps — sandboxes runtime, apps bucket, and a separate preview origin
• Dedicated workers - scheduler.enabled: true to enable scalable scheduled deliveries
• NATS + warehouse workers - nats.enabled: true and warehouseNatsWorker.enabled: true for handling large volumes of warehouse queries
• ≥ 2 backend replicas with pod anti-affinity and a pod disruption budget
• Size resource requests

Infrastructure dependencies

• Postgres HA, backups and point-in-time recovery on the external database from Tier 1, plus the pgvector extension if you use Enterprise AI features
• Bucket strategy and lifecycle rules - a dedicated bucket per purpose, with a 1-day lifecycle delete on the results bucket
• SMTP email
• Email deliverability - transactional provider, SPF/DKIM on the sender domain
• Load balancer settings - timeout ≥ 300s, health check on /api/v1/health, request body limit ≥ LIGHTDASH_MAX_PAYLOAD

Security and authentication

• SSO (Okta / Azure AD / Google / generic OIDC) with password authentication disabled
• Account linking and personal access token policy
• CSP enforcement and explicit CORS

Tier 3: Optional features and observability

Enterprise features

• Pre-aggregations — pre-aggregate NATS workers + a dedicated S3 bucket
• SCIM provisioning from your IdP
• Results caching, embedding, service accounts, custom roles

Integrations (enable what you use)

• Slack — scheduled deliveries, unfurls, AI agents in Slack
• GitHub or GitLab — dbt repo write-back
• Google Sheets sync

Observability

• Prometheus metrics enabled, and scraped on every pod
• Structured JSON logging shipped to your log platform
• Alerts on HTTP error rate/latency, queue depth, and Postgres pool saturation

Architecture: what you’re deploying

Component	Chart value	What it does
Backend	(always on)	API + UI. Scale horizontally, 2+ replicas
Scheduler worker	scheduler.enabled	Scheduled deliveries, Slack/email sends, exports, syncs
NATS	nats.enabled	JetStream message bus for async query execution
Warehouse NATS worker	warehouseNatsWorker.enabled	Executes warehouse queries + streams results to S3
Pre-aggregate NATS worker	preAggregateNatsWorker.enabled	Builds pre-aggregated materializations (Enterprise)
Headless browser	browserless-chrome.enabled	Chromium pool for screenshots/PDFs
Migration job	migrationJob.enabled	Pre-upgrade Helm hook that runs database migrations exactly once
PostgreSQL	external (postgresql.enabled: false)	Application state. Don’t use the bundled subchart, even for a PoC
S3 bucket(s)	external	Query results, downloads, pre-agg materializations, data apps

The chart wires up environment variables for you in three buckets:

• configMap.* — non-sensitive env vars, applied to backend and all workers
• secrets.* — sensitive env vars, rendered into a Kubernetes Secret (or bring your own via existingSecret)
• extraEnv / schedulerExtraEnv — raw env entries, including valueFrom.secretKeyRef

The full list of supported environment variables lives in the environment variables reference.

Core configuration

The chart’s essential first-boot values — SITE_URL and LIGHTDASH_SECRET are the two to get right before you start:

image:
  repository: lightdash/lightdash
  tag: "0.xxxx.x"        # always pin; upgrade deliberately

configMap:
  SITE_URL: https://lightdash.yourcompany.com
  SECURE_COOKIES: "true"
  TRUST_PROXY: "true"
  LIGHTDASH_MODE: default
  LIGHTDASH_MAX_PAYLOAD: "40mb"   # default 5mb is too small for large dbt manifests

existingSecret: lightdash-secrets   # LIGHTDASH_SECRET, S3 keys, SMTP password, ...

• SITE_URL signs invite emails, OAuth redirect URIs, Slack unfurls, and delivery links — set the final https:// URL before first boot.
• LIGHTDASH_SECRET signs session cookies and encrypts data at rest in Postgres. Set it and store it durably; losing it means losing access to encrypted data.
• SECURE_COOKIES and TRUST_PROXY must both be "true" behind a TLS-terminating proxy, and COOKIES_MAX_AGE_HOURS sets session length — see Secure Lightdash with HTTPS.
• Every variable is documented in the environment variables reference.

For secrets, prefer existingSecret populated by External Secrets Operator or a CSI driver so credentials stay out of Helm values and git.

Headless browser

Enabled by default in the chart — keep it on, and tune the browserless timeouts and memory guards for large dashboards. The browser renders dashboards by calling SITE_URL, so it must reach that URL from inside the cluster (use INTERNAL_LIGHTDASH_HOST if it can’t). See Headless browser for the container and backend variables, and Resource recommendations for sizing.

Upgrades and operations

Pin image.tag, upgrade at least monthly, rehearse each upgrade in a UAT instance that mirrors production, and enable the migration job for multi-replica deployments. Full versioning policy, upgrade mechanics, the migration job, and rollback are in Upgrading Lightdash.

Scheduler worker

Run a dedicated scheduler worker so a heavy dashboard export can’t starve the API — see Scheduler worker. For async warehouse queries, see the NATS workers overview and warehouse workers, including the critical rule: never enable nats.enabled without warehouseNatsWorker.enabled.

Sizing and availability

Size per-component resource requests and run 2+ backend replicas with pod anti-affinity and a pod disruption budget — the full component table and availability settings are in Resource recommendations.

PostgreSQL

Run external managed Postgres with high availability, backups, the uuid-ossp and pgvector extensions, and a connection budget — setup and production guidance are in Configure Lightdash to use an external database.

Object storage

Use a dedicated bucket per purpose with lifecycle rules, blocked public access, and scoped credentials — setup and the full bucket strategy are in Configure Lightdash to use external object storage.

Email deliverability

Env vars are in the SMTP reference. Best practice on top:

• Use a transactional provider (SES, Postmark, SendGrid) — Lightdash Cloud sends through Postmark.
• Set up SPF/DKIM for the sender domain so scheduled deliveries don’t land in spam.

Load balancer and networking

HTTPS end-to-end, a load-balancer timeout ≥ 300s, a health check on GET /api/v1/health, and a request body limit ≥ LIGHTDASH_MAX_PAYLOAD — covered in Secure Lightdash with HTTPS.

Authentication policy

Enterprise deployments should be SSO-only, with password authentication disabled and account linking enabled — per-provider setup is in use SSO login for self-hosted Lightdash. Also set a personal access token policy (PAT_ALLOWED_ORG_ROLES, PAT_MAX_EXPIRATION_TIME_IN_DAYS, or DISABLE_PAT), and keep ALLOW_MULTIPLE_ORGS: "false" (default) for a single-company instance.

Security hardening

• CSP enforcement: LIGHTDASH_CSP_REPORT_ONLY: "false" (default is report-only; enforce in production), plus LIGHTDASH_CSP_ALLOWED_DOMAINS for any extra origins you load from.
• CORS: leave disabled unless embedding; if embedding, LIGHTDASH_CORS_ENABLED: "true" with an explicit LIGHTDASH_CORS_ALLOWED_DOMAINS list — never *.
• Egress policy: Lightdash needs your warehouse, S3, SMTP, api.keygen.sh (license), your IdP, and any AI provider endpoints — everything else can be blocked.
• NetworkPolicies: the chart only ships one for NATS (keep nats.networkPolicy.enabled: true, the default); add your own default-deny + allow rules for backend ↔ postgres/browserless/S3 if your cluster uses them.
• Pod security: the chart sets no podSecurityContext / securityContext by default — add runAsNonRoot and drop capabilities per your Pod Security Standards baseline.
• Soft delete for content recovery: SOFT_DELETE_ENABLED: "true" (plus SOFT_DELETE_RETENTION_DAYS, default 30).

Enterprise features

License key setup and validation is covered in enterprise license keys — the key is validated against https://api.keygen.sh on every server start, so allowlist that domain in your egress policy.

Enterprise feature flags

Enable the Enterprise features you use through configMap — each is documented in the environment variables reference:

• Caching: RESULTS_CACHE_ENABLED, AUTOCOMPLETE_CACHE_ENABLED, CACHE_STALE_TIME_SECONDS.
• Governance: SERVICE_ACCOUNT_ENABLED, CUSTOM_ROLES_ENABLED.
• Embedding: EMBEDDING_ENABLED with LIGHTDASH_IFRAME_EMBEDDING_DOMAINS.

AI Analyst

Set AI_COPILOT_ENABLED: "true", choose AI_DEFAULT_PROVIDER (openai, azure, anthropic, openrouter, or bedrock) with the matching API key, and AI_EMBEDDING_ENABLED: "true" for verified answers (requires pgvector). Provider variables, LLM-gateway routing, and guardrails such as AI_COPILOT_MAX_QUERY_LIMIT and AI_COPILOT_ALLOWED_PROJECT_UUID are in the environment variables reference. For the MCP endpoint, see Configure MCP for Lightdash.

Data apps

Serve app previews from a separate domain (APP_RUNTIME_PREVIEW_ORIGIN) so untrusted app content never shares an origin with your Lightdash session cookies, and use a persistent apps bucket with no delete lifecycle. Sandbox providers and their security model are in sandboxes; configuration in self-hosting data apps.

Observability

Enable Prometheus metrics and structured JSON logging on every pod, and scrape them from your monitoring stack:

• Metrics and alerting guidance: Prometheus metrics. Scrape port 9090 on all pods labelled app.kubernetes.io/name=lightdash (the chart ships no ServiceMonitor/PodMonitoring — create one; Lightdash Cloud scrapes at a 30s interval). If you run NATS, its Prometheus exporter is on port 7777 (nats.promExporter.enabled: true).
• Log configuration: Configure logging. Ship LIGHTDASH_LOG_FORMAT: json to your log platform; LIGHTDASH_LOG_LEVEL: audit adds an audit trail of user actions.
• Alert on HTTP p95/error rate (http_server_request_duration_seconds), queue depth / scheduler job failures, Postgres pool saturation, and event-loop lag.