Manage 12-factor app charms

Prepare an OCI image for a 12-factor app charm

Initialise a 12-factor app charm

Use charmcraft init and specify the relevant profile:

charmcraft init --profile <profile>

Charmcraft automatically creates a charmcraft.yaml project file, a requirements.txt file and source code for the charm in your current directory. You will need to check the project file and README.md to verify that the charm’s name and description are correct.

See also: init

Specify the flask-framework profile:

charmcraft init --profile flask-framework

Manage configurations for a 12-factor app charm

A charm configuration can be added if your 12-factor app requires environment variables, for example, to pass a token for a service. Add the configuration in charmcraft.yaml:

config:
  options:
    token:
      description: The token for the service.
      type: string

A user-defined configuration option will correspond to an environment variable generated by the paas-charm project to expose the configuration to the Flask workload. In general, a configuration option config-option-name will be mapped as FLASK_CONFIG_OPTION_NAME where the option name will be converted to upper case, dashes will be converted to underscores and the FLASK_ prefix will be added. In the example above, the token configuration will be mapped as the FLASK_TOKEN environment variable. In addition to the environment variable, the configuration is also available in the Flask variable app.config without the FLASK_ prefix.

The configuration can be set on the deployed charm using:

juju config <app name> token=<token>

Manage relations for a 12-factor app charm

A charm integration can be added to your charmed 12-factor app by providing the integration and endpoint definition in your project file:

requires:
  <endpoint name>:
    interface: <endpoint interface name>
    optional: false

Here, <endpoint name> corresponds to the endpoint of the application with which you want the integration, and <endpoint interface name> is the endpoint schema to which this relation conforms. Both the <endpoint name> and <endpoint interface name> must coincide with the structs defined in the pfoject file of that particular application’s charm. The key optional with value False means that the charm will get blocked and stop the services if the integration is not provided.

You can provide the integration to your deployed 12-factor app using:

juju integrate <app charm> <endoint name>

After the integration has been established, the connection string and other configuration options will be available as environment variables that you may use to configure your 12-factor application.

For example, if you wish to integrate your 12-factor application with PostgreSQL (machine or k8s charm), add the following endpoint definition to your project file:

requires:
  postgresql:
    interface: postgresql_client
    optional: True

Provide the integration to your deployed 12-factor app with:

juju integrate <app charm> postgresql

This integration creates the following environment variables you may use to configure your 12-factor application.

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_CONNECT_STRING

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_SCHEME

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_NETLOC

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_PATH

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_PARAMS

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_QUERY

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_FRAGMENT

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_USERNAME

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_PASSWORD

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_HOSTNAME

  • POSTGRESQL_DB_PORT

Manage secrets for a 12-factor app charm

A user secret can be added to a charm and all the keys and values in the secret will be exposed as environment variables. Add the secret configuration option in your project file:

config:
  options:
    api-token:
      type: secret
      description: Secret needed to access some API secret information

Once the charm is deployed, you can add a juju secret to the model:

user@host:~$ juju add-secret my-api-token value=1234 othervalue=5678
secret:cru00lvmp25c77qa0qrg

From this output, you can get the Juju secret ID. Grant the application access to view the value of the secret:

juju grant-secret my-api-token <app name>

Add the Juju secret ID to the application:

juju config <app name> api-token=secret:cru00lvmp25c77qa0qrg

The following environment variables are available for the application:

Use 12-factor app charms

(If your charm is a Django charm) Create an admin user

Use the create-superuser action to create a new Django admin account:

juju run <app name> create-superuser username=<username> email=<email>

(If your workload depends on a database) Migrate the database

If your app depends on a database, it is common to run a database migration script before app startup which, for example, creates or modifies tables. This can be done by including the migrate.sh script in the root of your project. It will be executed with the same environment variables and context as the 12-factor app.

If the migration script fails, it will retry upon update-status. The migration script will run on every unit. The script is assumed to be idempotent (in other words, can be run multiple times) and that it can be run on multiple units simultaneously without issue. Handling multiple migration scripts that run concurrently can be achieved by, for example, locking any tables during the migration.