Question

Terraform and App Platform env variables

Posted on February 22, 2023
DigitalOcean App Platform Terraform
Asked by Marco Fedele

Hi, we are currently migrating the management of our infrastructure to Terraform.

While I’m translating the App config file to a Terraform one, I’ve found out some issues with Bindable Variables like APP_URL APP_DOMAIN that I referenced as "${APP_URL}"; writing it like that now throws an error when running terraform, but I didn’t found how to write it correctly.

Similary, Databases that I referenced as ${redis.REDIS_URL} or ${mongo.DATABASE_URL} not seem to work.

I found nothing in examples or documentation.

Can you help me? Thank you

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• February 25, 2023

Accepted Answer

Hi there,

In Terraform, you can escape variable interpolation by using double dollar signs: $$. For example, in your case, to use the string ${mongo.DATABASE_URL} literally, you can escape the interpolation sequence like this: $${mongo.DATABASE_URL}.

That way Terraform will not look for that variable locally but the string will be sent to the App Platform API.

Let me know how it goes!

Best,

Bobby