How to use GAE's dispatch.yaml with multiple development environments?

Question

I am trying to understand the dispatch.yaml file for Google App Engine.

We have a vanilla web app with a frontend and a backend. We also have a develop

Answer 1

The way I approached this problem is by using different repo branches for the application code.

• the master branch version is deployed to my_app-dev - the development environment app
• the production branch version is deployed to my_app - the production environment app

This way the file is always named dispatch.yaml. The service names don't change between environments, but the custom domain names associated to them do - and that's reflected in the content of the dispatch.yaml file in the 2 branches:

$ git diff production master -- dispatch.yaml
diff --git a/dispatch.yaml b/dispatch.yaml
index 0768a6a..c1326cf 100644
--- a/dispatch.yaml
+++ b/dispatch.yaml
@@ -1,14 +1,14 @@
-application: my_app
+application: my_app-dev
 dispatch:
-  - url: "service1.my_app.com/*"
+  - url: "service1-dev.my_app.com/*"
     module: service1
-  - url: "service1-dot-my_app.appspot.com/*"
+  - url: "service1-dot-my_app-dev.appspot.com/*"
     module: service1
   - url: "*/service1/*"
     module: service1
-  - url: "service2.my_app.com/*"
+  - url: "service2-dev.my_app.com/*"
     module: service2
-  - url: "service2-dot-my_app.appspot.com/*"
+  - url: "service2-dot-my_app-dev.appspot.com/*"
     module: service2

Note: I'm implementing the different environments at the app level (as opposed to the service level, see Advantages of implementing CI/CD environments at GAE project/app level vs service/module level?). A service-level implementation cannot use this approach.

Answer 2

I also had the same problem as you and I come to offer you a 3rd solution. If you have several development environments, you may have an automatic deployment (for my part, with Gitlab-CI). I proceed as follows during my deployment internship, I copy (or rename) the dispatch file:

• Testing: ./gcp.dispatch.testing.yml => ./dispatch.yml
• Production: ./gcp.dispatch.production.yml => ./dispatch.yml

Here is an example of a stage from my gitlab-ci.yml file (for testing):

testing__deploy__gcp_dispatch:
  stage: dispatch
  image: google/cloud-sdk:alpine
  script:
    - cd ${CI_PROJECT_DIR}
    - gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file ${GCP_SERVICE_KEY_FILE}
    - cp ./gcp.dispatch.testing.yml ./dispatch.yml
    - gcloud --quiet --project ${GCP_PROJECT_ID} app deploy ./dispatch.yml

There you go !

PS: I understood that after, where the error Unexpected attribute 'dispatch' for object of type AppInfoExternal. came from. gcloud does not accept that the file is named differently than dispatch.yml...

Answer 3

I know this is an old question, but I just discovered something interesting that will help everyone wanting to deploy to different environments. After a lot of trial and error, I figured out that gcloud requires the dispatch file given as parameter to be called dispatch.yaml. If you call it anything else, like dispatch-staging.yaml or dev-dispatch.yaml it won't work. However, and this is the trick I found, the file doesn't have to be in your project's root folder. So, in our project I did this:

1. <project_root>/dispatch.yaml - for production
2. <project_root>/deploy-staging/dispatch.yaml - for staging

And now I can do cd <project_root> and then:

1. gcloud --project <production> app deploy ./dispatch.yaml
2. gcloud --project <staging> app deploy ./deploy-staging/dispatch.yaml

In other words, gcloud doesn't care in what directory the dispatch.yaml file is located as long as it is called dispatch.yaml.