Cursor + MCP's | Docker | Strapi v5 | Next JS | Render

Source: Dev.to

Overview

🚀 Today my mission was to deploy a Strapi CMS that would power the content for my portfolio website. I wanted to create the fastest and most efficient development workflow possible, so I looked for a cloud solution that could load and deploy Docker images straight out of the box.

Using Render

☁️ I discovered Render, a cloud platform that builds Docker images directly from a GitHub repository. This allows you to run the exact same versions locally and in production—in my case Strapi v5 and PostgreSQL 16.

💬 After some back‑and‑forth with Grok from xAi (while sitting on the toilet), I figured out how to use Render with a Render configuration file. This file defines your server structure in a clean and organised way. It is similar to a Dockerfile but created specifically for Render, enabling reusable blueprints directly from GitHub.

Generating the Strapi Project with Cursor

⚙️ Once I understood the workflow, I created a new project and asked my good friend Cursor to generate a full Strapi v5 project with a Docker image. With Opus 4.5, Cursor created the entire scaffold in seconds—no manual searching required. I loaded the files and didn’t touch Google once.

Debugging and Deployment

🐳 After Cursor generated the project, I started debugging. I checked the logs and verified that the Docker container was running properly. With a bit of prompting and tweaking, I had a fully working Strapi v5 setup with a Dockerfile and a Render configuration file in under ten minutes.

📚 Pro tip: Import the documentation of your tech stack into Cursor to give it more context (Render docs, Strapi v5 docs, etc.). Feed everything in.

📦 After testing everything locally, I uploaded the blueprint to Render. When the deployment began, a few errors popped up. Normally you could copy the logs manually into Cursor, but Render provides an MCP server that you can connect directly to Cursor. Cursor fetched deployment logs automatically and identified the issues.

🤯 It worked beautifully, and with only a few prompts my production Dockerfile was fixed. MCP servers are absolutely brilliant. Yes, there are some risks, but I’m not working with sensitive data right now, so it’s acceptable.

Integrating with Next.js

🧱 With Render running my Strapi v5 CMS, the real work began. I created entries and linked them to my existing Next JS portfolio. I structured everything based on my current site: projects, jobs, tech stacks, plus single pages like About and Home.

🔌 Then came a new challenge: building an API integration for my portfolio. Manually inspecting all endpoints was not an option. I discovered a Strapi v5 MCP server that can be installed on a local Strapi instance and exposed to other projects. It works on localhost and gave Cursor full context for building the API integration.

🧠 This allowed my portfolio to retrieve all data automatically. The MCP server knew all my entries and pages, enabling seamless data fetching.

Conclusion

🏁 If you want to move fast today, use Cursor with MCP servers and choose a cloud platform that integrates with your development environment. You stay in full control as a developer while leveraging modern tools to reach your goals as quickly as possible.

This is my first post, but I will definitely write more in the coming months about this learning journey!