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Deploy Node.js applications

Overview

Node.js is a widely recognized runtime, known for its ease of use, low learning curve, and large community. Deploying a Node.js application on Tsuru is an effortless task. You should have a package.json, Procfile, and tsuru.yaml.

Creating the app

To create an app, you use the command app create:

$ tsuru app create <app-name> <app-platform>

For NodeJS, the app platform is, guess what, nodejs! Let’s be over creative and develop a never-developed tutorial-app: a myapp

$ tsuru app create myapp nodejs

Application code

Basically we need to write 3 files and put on project directory: Procfile, package.json and tsuru.yaml

Procfile

This file is useful to identify how to execute your application, each line represents a tsuru process, usually process named web is responsabile to receive requests, important NOTE the app may listen requests following PORT envvar OR use the default port 8888

web: node app.js

package.json

This file is used to pick your nodejs version and install your dependencies.

{
  "name": "hello-world",
  "description": "hello world test on tsuru",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "4.21.x"
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": "20.17.0"
  }
}

The package-lock.json file is crucial in Node.js projects for ensuring consistent and reproducible builds. Here's why generating and maintaining this file is important: ensures consistent dependency versions, speeds Up installations and improves security

yarn.lock (optional)

first we check if there is a yarn.lock file in the root of your files. If so, we use yarn; otherwise, we use npm.

tsuru.yaml

tsuru.yaml is used to tsuru specific settings, this may be the initial settings:

healthcheck:
  path: /

Operating system dependencies: requirements.apt (optional)

list of ubuntu dependencies that will be installed, useful to install tools required for build process

example: 

gcc

Deploy application

Let's deploy our application with command

tsuru app deploy -a myapp .

Install development dependencies

If you want to also install development dependencies, set the environment variable NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION=false

example:

tsuru env set -a myapp NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION=false

package.json, .nvmrc or .node-version

The platform looks for desired node.js version in three places: .nvmrc, .node-version and package.json, the first value encountered will be used to instal the target version.