---
sheet_format: 1.0
id: 2025-04-deployer-brinjel-sur-clever-cloud
title: "Déployer Brinjel sur Clever Cloud"
title_en: "Deploying Brinjel on Clever Cloud"
speaker: Erwan Rougeux
with: []
date: 2025-04-18
event: "Clever Cloud blog"
place: "online (Clever Cloud blog, French original; English version published the same day)"
format: article
language: fr
video: null
slides: null
topics: [open source, agriculture, brinjel, elixir, phoenix, clever cloud, paas, deployment, sovereign hosting]
source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the article as published on the Clever Cloud blog on 18 April 2025 (about 900 words, signed Erwan Rougeux). Everything here is the author's own written text; check the article before quoting."
review: reviewed
review_date: 2026-10-22
---

# Déployer Brinjel sur Clever Cloud

**In one sentence:** Erwan Rougeux documents how he adapted Brinjel, a free software for market gardeners' field planning written in Elixir, to run on Clever Cloud (e-mail through MailPace, PostgreSQL and S3 add-ons), gives the full deployment recipe, and frames it as a proof of concept of hosting an open-source business tool on a sovereign cloud.

## TL;DR
Brinjel is free software for market gardeners: planning seasons, tracking harvests, organising production, built by and for growers. The article presents the changes Erwan made to deploy it on Clever Cloud and the step-by-step procedure. Why this platform, in his words: the infrastructure scales with the load, the hosting meets data-sovereignty requirements, and an application goes to production in a few commands with its database, storage and e-mail services. Three adaptations: e-mail sent through MailPace via a dynamic adapter in the Swoosh module; support for the PostgreSQL connection URL that Clever Cloud provides; an S3 backend on the Cellar add-on for images and files. Then the recipe: clone the official repository, merge the deployment branch from his fork, create the Elixir application and its add-ons with the `clever` CLI, set about thirty environment variables, create the Cellar bucket, validate the sending domain in MailPace, run `clever deploy`. He closes by thanking André Hoarau, Brinjel's creator, calls the work a proof of concept showing how an open-source business tool can use a modern cloud for durability and scale, and asks readers who want to support Brinjel to use its official SaaS. The same episode of his work is discussed in [MACI #129](https://slides.wanoo.me/ai/2025-04-maci-129.md), where he says the port took half a day and went back upstream as merge requests.

## Human stake
- **For whom:** market gardeners who use Brinjel, and André Hoarau, the independent developer who maintains it.
- **What is at stake:** a farm tool that keeps running on hosting the grower controls, and an open-source project that gains a deployment path without being copied as a service.
- **The documented choice:** he published the adaptations and the recipe, kept them in a fork merged with the official code, and pointed readers to the project's own SaaS rather than replicating it (sections "Adaptations effectuées" and "Conclusion").

## Erwan's key points
- Brinjel is free software by and for market gardeners: seasons, harvests, production, with an interface built for the field (introduction).
- He gives three reasons for Clever Cloud: scaling with the load, hosting that meets data-sovereignty requirements, and production in a few commands with database, storage and e-mail integrated (section "Pourquoi choisir Clever Cloud pour Brinjel ?").
- Three adaptations he made: MailPace for e-mail through a dynamic Swoosh adapter; support for the `POSTGRESQL_ADDON_URI` the platform provides; an S3 backend on Cellar for files (section "Adaptations effectuées pour le déploiement").
- The deployment recipe is written to be reproduced: official repository plus his fork's branch, an Elixir app with PostgreSQL, Cellar and MailPace add-ons, the environment variables, the bucket, the sending domain, then `clever deploy` (section "Matériel et méthode").
- He presents the result as a proof of concept, not a copy of an existing SaaS: show how a business tool can use a modern cloud for durability and scale, in a logic of open collaboration (section "Conclusion").
- He thanks André Hoarau and asks readers to support the project by using its official SaaS (section "Conclusion").

## Outline
- Introduction: what Brinjel is.
- Pourquoi choisir Clever Cloud pour Brinjel ?: scaling, sovereign data hosting, ease of deployment.
- Adaptations effectuées pour le déploiement: MailPace, PostgreSQL URL, S3 on Cellar.
- Matériel et méthode : déploiement sur Clever Cloud: initial configuration (clone, fork, merge), application and add-ons, environment variables, Cellar bucket and MailPace domain, `clever deploy`.
- Conclusion: a proof of concept of open-source hosting on a sovereign cloud; thanks to André Hoarau; support the project through its SaaS.

## Notable quotes
> "L'objectif ici n'est pas de répliquer une offre SaaS existante, mais bien de démontrer comment un outil métier peut tirer parti d'un cloud moderne pour assurer sa pérennité et sa scalabilité." — Erwan Rougeux, section "Conclusion"
*"The aim here is not to replicate an existing SaaS offer, but to show how a business tool can draw on a modern cloud for its durability and scalability."*

> "Si vous souhaitez soutenir le projet Brinjel et son développement, nous vous encourageons à utiliser sa version SaaS officielle disponible sur le site de Brinjel." — Erwan Rougeux, section "Conclusion"
*"If you want to support the Brinjel project and its development, we encourage you to use its official SaaS version, available on Brinjel's site."*

## Questions this answers
**Q: What is Brinjel?**
A: Free field-management software for market gardeners (seasons, harvests, production), created by André Hoarau (introduction, conclusion).

**Q: What had to change to run it on Clever Cloud?**
A: E-mail through MailPace with a dynamic Swoosh adapter, reading the platform's PostgreSQL URL, and an S3 backend on the Cellar add-on for files (section "Adaptations effectuées").

**Q: Where is the deployment code?**
A: In his fork on Framagit (branch `deploy-clevercloud`), to be merged with the official repository before deploying (section "Configuration initiale").

**Q: Is this a hosted Brinjel offer by Clever Cloud?**
A: No. He calls it a proof of concept and asks readers who want to support Brinjel to use the project's official SaaS (section "Conclusion").

**Q: Why does he say this matters?**
A: Because it shows an open-source business tool adapted and hosted on an infrastructure he describes as sovereign, performant and resilient, in a logic of open collaboration (section "Conclusion").

## Mentioned
Brinjel, André Hoarau, Clever Cloud, Elixir, Phoenix, Swoosh, MailPace, PostgreSQL, Cellar (S3), Framagit, clever CLI