I'm working on adding a "rev package" command to the command-line tool. It will create a zip file of the app and revel source directories, along with a script to run the app.

It needs the source directories since templates and assets are kept within them. Also, it is frequently useful to have access to the source in production, e.g. for sending exception emails.

The goal is to make deployment to a server without a Go environment very easy.

EDIT: To answer your original question: in the current version, you must have a working Go installation to run your Revel app. Then: "rev run import/path/to/app prod". I am pretty sure that it will not work on GAE -- I realize this is an important/valuable use case and will investigate it in the future.