Digital Ocean Apps (IaC)

There is a simplified deployment type without Kubernetes. This type is recommended for most new applications because it allows you to set up infrastructure faster and doesn’t require additional DevOps knowledge from the development team. You can switch to a more complex Kubernetes solution when your application will be at scale.

It’s a step-by-step Ship deployment guide. We will use the Digital Ocean Apps and GitHub Actions for automated deployment. Mongo Atlas and Redis Cloud for databases deployment, Cloudflare for DNS and SSL configuration and Pulumi for Infrastructure as Code

You need to create GitHub, Digital Ocean, CloudFlare, MongoDB Atlas and Redis Cloud accounts.

Also, you need git and Node.js if you already haven’t.

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Setup project

First, initialize your project. Type npx create-ship-app init in the terminal then choose desired build type and Digital Ocean Apps as a cloud service provider.

You will have the next project structure.

/my-app
  /deploy
  /apps
    /web
    /api
  /.github
  ...

Create GitHub private repository and upload source code.

cd my-app
git remote add origin https://github.com/Oigen43/my-app.git
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main

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MongoDB Atlas

Navigate to MongoDB Atlas, sign in to your account and create a new database.

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Database creation

1. Select the appropriate type. Dedicated for a production environment, shared for staging/demo.
2. Select provider and region. We recommend selecting the same or closest region to the DO application.
3. Select cluster tier. Free M0 Sandbox should be enough for staging/demo environments. For production environment we recommended selecting the option that supports cloud backups, M10 or higher.
4. Enter cluster name

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Security and connection

After cluster creation, you’ll need to set up security. Select the authentication type (username and password) and create a user.

Add IP addresses list, which should have access to your cluster. Add 0.0.0.0/0 IP address to allow anyone with credentials to connect.

After database creation, go to the dashboard page and get the URI connection string by pressing the connect button.

Select Connect your application option. Choose driver and mongo version, and copy connection string. Don’t forget to replace <password> with your credentials.

Save this value. It will be needed later when creating the app in Digital Ocean.

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Redis Cloud

Navigate to Redis Cloud and create an account. Select cloud provider and region, then press Let's start free to finish database creation.

Open database settings and get the database public endpoint and password.

Form Redis connection string using public endpoint and password redis://:<password@<public-endpoint>. Save this value. It will be needed later when creating the app in Digital Ocean.

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Environment variables

The APP_ENV environment variable is typically set based on the environment in which the application is running. Its value corresponds to the specific environment, such as “development”, “staging” or “production”. This variable helps the application identify its current environment and load the corresponding configuration.

For the web application, by setting the environment variable APP_ENV, the application can determine the environment in which it is running and download the appropriate configuration file:

These files should contain specific configuration variables required for each environment.

In contrast, the API utilizes a single .env file that houses its environment-specific configuration. This file typically contains variables like API keys, secrets, or other sensitive information. To ensure security, it’s crucial to add the .env file to the .gitignore file, preventing it from being tracked and committed to the repository.

So just specify the environment variables that will contain the values of your secrets. For example, if you have a secret named API_KEY, create an environment variable named API_KEY and set the value of the corresponding secret for it.

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Digital Ocean via Pulumi

Pulumi is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) platform that allows developers to define and provision cloud infrastructure using familiar programming languages.
Instead of using domain-specific languages or YAML templates, Pulumi leverages existing languages like TypeScript, Python, Go, and C#.

Go to the /deploy directory at the root of your project and proceed to the next steps:

pulumi version

pulumi login --local

vi ~/.zshrc

# DigitalOcean start
export DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN=dop_v1_...
export SPACES_ACCESS_KEY_ID=DO...
export SPACES_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...
# DigitalOcean end

source ~/.zshrc

pulumi stack init organization/{project-name}/{environment}

cp .env.example .env.staging

npm i

pulumi up

Finally, you will observe the following output:

Review the planned resource creation and proceed with the resource update. This process may take a few minutes to complete.

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Cloudflare

Navigate to your Digital Ocean application and open Settings tab. Navigate to Domains row to open domain settings and copy starter domain of application.

Navigate to CloudFlare and sign into account.

1. Go to DNS tab and create a new record.
2. Click Add record. Select type CNAME, enter domain name (must be the same you entered in digital ocean settings) and paste alias into target field. Make sure Proxy status toggle enabled.
3. Save changes

Now go back to digital ocean and submit form. It usually takes about 5 minutes for digital ocean to confirm and start using your new domain. Once domain is confirmed, application can be accessed by new address.

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GitHub Actions

You can find two GitHub actions in the .github/workflows folder, responsible for triggering deployment when you push changes in your repository. If you chose frontend or backend on the initialization step, you’ll have one github workflow for the selected application type.

These actions require a Digital Ocean Personal Access Token and application ID. Respectively these are DO_ACCESS_TOKEN and DO_API_STAGING_APP_ID/DO_WEB_STAGING_APP_ID/DO_API_PRODUCTION_APP_ID/DO_WEB_PRODUCTION_APP_ID.

Next, navigate to the Apps tab in the left sidebar and open your Digital Ocean application. You can find the id of your application id in the browser address bar.

Now you can add these keys to your GitHub repository’s secrets.

Navigate to the GitHub repository page, and open the Settings tab and these values. You have to be repository admin or owner to open this tab.

Done! Application deployed and can be accessed by provided domain.

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Logging (optional)

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Build-in

Digital Ocean has built-in logs in raw format. It will gather all data that your apps will produce. In order to view them, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Digital Ocean account.
2. Click on the Apps tab in the left-hand navigation menu.
3. Click on the name of the app you want to view the logs for.
4. Click on the Runtime Logs tab in the app dashboard.
5. You will see a list of logs for different components of your app. Click on the component you want to view the logs for.
6. You can filter the logs by time, severity, and component. Use the drop-down menus provided to select your filter criteria.
7. You can also search for specific keywords in the logs by using the search bar at the top of the page.

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Integrations

Currently, Digital Ocean Apps supports only 3 integrations: PaperTrail, Logtail and Datadog. You can find detailed instructions on how to set up these logs at this link.

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Example Integration Logtail

To configure Logtail follow these steps:

1. Create account on Logtail
2. Open Sources on the left sidebar.
3. Create new source by clicking “Connect source” button

4. Select HTTP source and specify name for this connection

5. Copy source token

6. Open Digital Ocean Apps
7. Select Settings tab for your application

8. Select Log Forwarding and then press “Add Destination”

9. Fill information with token that we retrieved from Logtail

10. That’s it! In couple minutes your app will send the latest logs to Logtail