I am using DigitalOcean App Platform to deploy a Django app. The initial deployment worked fine, but I’ve attempted to use the bulk editor on the component-level environment variables, and since then, the deployment fails when executing dj_database_url.config(default=config('DATABASE_URL')
.
For debugging, I added this line to settings.py
:
print(f"[BUILD DEBUG] DATABASE_URL = {repr(os.environ.get('DATABASE_URL'))}")
This returns [BUILD DEBUG] DATABASE_URL = '${db.DATABASE_URL}'
in the build logs.
I don’t understand why the environment variable is not resolving. My app spec looks like this:
services:
- environment_slug: python
envs:
- key: DATABASE_URL
scope: RUN_AND_BUILD_TIME
value: ${db.DATABASE_URL}
Could this be a bug, or am I doing something wrong? Yes, my database is named correctly:
databases:
- engine: PG
name: db
The only thing that changed between my last deployment and this failed deployment, besides a few lines of code, is that I used the bulk editor to add new environment variables. Some of the existing environment variables were encrypted, but they look OK in the app spec.
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Hi there,
I think that the
${db.DATABASE_URL}
reference isn’t resolved during the build phase, only at runtime. If I remember correctly, App Platform doesn’t expose database credentials during build to prevent issues like accidental schema changes or migrations that aren’t backward compatible.If you’re using
dj_database_url.config()
during build time (e.g., running migrations), it’ll fail becauseDATABASE_URL
is still just the literal string${db.DATABASE_URL}
.To fix this, make sure database access (like
migrate
) happens at runtime, not during build.Or, if absolutely needed, manually set a fallback
DATABASE_URL
value for build purposes, just be cautious not to expose production credentials.- Bobby