Install

Yoink is a single self-contained binary: no daemon, no config bootstrap, no runtime. All four install paths produce the same yoink on your PATH.

brew install oddur/yoink/yoink

cargo install --git https://github.com/oddur/yoink yoink

curl -LsSf https://github.com/oddur/yoink/releases/latest/download/yoink-installer.sh | sh

Verify

yoink --version

Prerequisites for actual deploys

Yoink doesn't bootstrap docker; it expects:

• Docker on the host(s): installed, running, and the deploy user is in the docker group
• SSH access from the operator's machine to each host: yoink uses ssh://user@host to reach the docker daemon, no docker socket exposed over TCP
• For local-build workflows: docker on the operator's machine too (yoink build shells out to docker build)

Tailscale pairs especially cleanly with the SSH transport; see Pairing.

Next: your first deploy

Yoink installed, host with Docker + SSH ready? Head to Five-minute first deploy; two commands take you from a fresh VPS to a running app behind a healthcheck-gated rolling deploy.

Upgrading

brew upgrade oddur/yoink/yoink              # Homebrew
cargo install --git https://github.com/oddur/yoink yoink --force   # cargo
curl -LsSf https://github.com/oddur/yoink/releases/latest/download/yoink-installer.sh | sh   # installer script

Release notes for every version are on the GitHub releases page. Yoink follows SemVer; minor bumps may add new fields but won't break existing yoink.yaml configs.

See also

• First deploy — drop a yoink.yaml, run one command.
• Hetzner cx23 quickstart with HTTPS — empty cloud account → live HTTPS in 90 seconds.