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Application Manifests

Overview​

An application manifest is a YAML file containing the entire configuration of an application as required by epinio (apps) push for succesful operation.

Manifests are irrelevant for all other epinio commands.

This is especially true for the commands epinio apps create and epinio apps update. Neither of these uses manifests. They operate directly on a named application, and can only set and modify a subset of the data provided by a manifest to epinio (apps) push.

Cheat Sheet​

The detailed specifications coming after this section provide the following essential ways of pushing an application:

  1. With an explicit manifest file as argument.

  2. With a standard manifest file (epinio.yml) found in the current directory.

  3. With no manifest file at all. This simply uses all the defaults, except for the name, which has no such.

Further defaults:

  • No environment variables.
  • No bound configurations.
  • One replica/instance.
  • Standard paketo builder image (paketobuildpacks/builder:full).
  • Current directory for the application sources.

Syntax epinio (apps) push​

Outside of options epinio (apps) push supports only a single optional argument. This argument is the path to the manifest file to use.

When no such path is specified the command looks for an epinio.yml file in the current directory as the manifest to use.

When no manifest file is found defaults are applied.

Syntax:

  • push [flags] [MANIFEST-PATH]

The command does support a number of options with which the user can override the information read from the manifest. In other words, the data in the manifest is the primary source, and the options just tweak things.

When an option is specified its value replaces the data from the manifest. Options do not extend any manifest values.

Options​

  • --instances, -i N

    The application's number of desired instances/replicas.

  • --env, -e NAME=VALUE

    Adds the environment variable NAME to the application's environment, with the specified VALUE. Multiple uses of the option accumulate. In case of multiple assignments to the same NAME the last wins.

  • --bind, -b CONFIGURATION

    Binds the named configuration to the application. Multiple uses of the option accumulate.

Side note: The three preceding options are supported by the apps create and apps update commands as well. The following options are not.

  • --name, -n NAME

    The application's name. When used more than once the last use wins.

The next three options specify the location of the application's sources. Only one form is allowed. Mixing forms causes push to report an error.

  • --path, -p SRC-PATH

    A path in the local filesystem, the directory holding the application's sources. When used more than once the last use wins.

    A relative path is resolved relative to the current working directory.

  • --container-image, -c URL

    The url of the container image containing the ready-to-run application. In other words, this is a pre-staged application, not sources. When used more than once the last use wins.

  • --git, -g REPO?,REV?

    The url of the git repository holding the application's sources, and the revision to use. If the revision is not specified the head of the main branch is assumed. When used more than once the last use wins.

    Note: The comma (,) is used as separator between repo url and revision because the nicer separators (:, @) are both used in urls, making extraction difficult due to the ambiguities coming out of that.

The last option controls staging:

  • --builder-image IMAGE

    The name of the image to use for staging the application's sources.

Manifest format​

An application manifest is a YAML file containing a single mapping as its main structure.

The keys of this mapping specify the various elements of an application's configuration.

  • name. See --name. Required.

  • configuration. Optional. The value of this key is a mapping whose keys specify the basic configuration of the application, namely:

    • instances. See --instances. Optional. Defaults to 1.

    • environment. See --env. Optional. Defaults to empty. The value of this key is a mapping whose keys are the names of the desired environment variables, and their desired values.

    • configurations. See --bind. Optional. Defaults to empty. The value of this keys is a sequence of names, for the configurations to bind.

  • staging. Optional. The value of this key is a mapping whose keys specify information controlling the application's staging.

    • builder. See --builder-image. Optional.
  • origin. Optional. The value of this key is a mapping whose keys specify the origin of the application (sources), namely:

    • path. See --path. Optional. See below.

      A relative path is resolved relative to the directory containing the manifest file.

    • container. See --container-image. Optional. See below.

    • git. See --git. Optional. See below. The value of this key is a mapping with keys url and revision, for the two part of the git reference. If revision is not present it defaults to the head of the repositories' main branch.

    As with the options the keys path, container, and git exclude each other. Only one may be specified in the manifest.

    If none is specified the system defaults to path and the sources are expected to reside in the directory containing the manifest file.

    Note that specifying any of the origin options replaces any of the origin keys. I.e. a --path options replaces/displace/overides a container key. Etc.

Last, in case it was missed reading the descriptions above, name is the only required key in a manifest file. The same as the NAME argument of pre-manifest push was the only required argument.

Example​

name: zanzibar
configuration:
instances: 333
configurations:
- snafu
environment:
DOGMA: "no"
staging:
builder: "paketobuildpacks/builder:tiny"
origin:
path: /somewhere/over/there