New launch features for node applications

Fresh Produce
1

Launching Node.js applications will now:

  • configure and create volume(s) for sqlite3
  • attach consul for litefs
  • set secrets for remix apps
  • initialize git
  • define a staging app if one is mentioned in .github/workflows/deploy.yml

This assumes that you have been through the fly walkthrough.

Together this makes launching an Epic Remix app with LiteFS as simple as removing the V1 (nomad) configuration they generate and launching. While I have been focusing on Epic, these features are now available to all Node apps.

Try it out! Feedback welcome! What is broken? What is missing? What else is needed to get fly-apps/dockerfile-node working with the other Node frameworks?

The current set of requirements for your application to be fully supported:

  • You need to be running Node 16 or later
  • Your app needs to have a package.json file
  • This package.json needs to include a start script and optionally a build script.
  • If process.env.PORT is set, you need to start your web server on this port
  • If process.env.DATABASE_URL is set, you need to use this URL to locate your database.

There also is a small but growing list of options you can specify after launch by running the following command:

npx dockerfile

The “sister” package, fly-apps/dockerfile-rails, will even do things like scan package.json for puppeteer and, if found, will add instructions to the Dockerfile to install and configure Chrome/Chromium. If there are features like this that would be helpful to Node users, open an issue, or better yet, a pull request.

Related reading for more depth/context:

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