Best practices for writing App Spec file with multiple environments

Posted on May 31, 2022

Hello, I’m working on writing a YAML App Spec file for a Node api application. I haven’t come across any examples that show how to handle the scenario of deploying multiple environments, such as a test, staging, and production environment. Is there a common best practice way of doing this? Should I just have three entries under “services” in the spec file that use the same repo or image but use different branches or tags? If I did, is it common to “namespace” the service names with the environment, such as “my-app-prod-”, “my-app-staging”, etc?

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alexdo

August 17, 2023

Yes, your understanding is correct. It’s common to “namespace” your service names with the environment such as “my-app-prod”, “my-app-staging”, etc. This helps to identify and manage different versions of your application. You can indeed have multiple entries under “services” in your spec file using the same repo or image but with different branches or tags. These entries correspond to your different environments.

Please remember to set the appropriate environment variables and resource allocations for each environment as they may require different settings.

However, keep in mind, orchestration and automation of this process can also be achieved through CI/CD pipelines, making it easier to manage and control these environments.

For more information, check out the DigitalOcean Docs on App Platform:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform

Hope that this helps!