Introduction

To create a new application via the Porter CLI, you can run:

porter create [kind] --app [app-name]

Required args/flags:

  • kind can be one of web, worker, or job
  • app-name must be a set of lowercase letters or digits separated by -

Each kind of application has a set of default values which can be overwritten. For example, web applications have the port set to 80. To overwrite this, for example to port 3000, create the following file values.yaml:

container:
  port: 3000

And then run the command:

porter create web --app web-test --values ./values.yaml

Go to the common configuration options section to view values.yaml files for common use-cases.

If you have experience with Kubernetes/Helm, you can also view all possible configuration options in the values.yaml files of the respective applications: web, worker, and job.

Deploying from Local Files

The default behavior of porter create is to use the local filesystem to build, push, and deploy a Docker image. For example, to create a new web application from the current directory, you can simply run:

porter create web --app web-test

Porter will look for a Dockerfile located at the root of the current directory. If a Dockerfile is found, Porter will use the default Docker container registry linked to the Porter project to deploy the application. If a Dockerfile is not found, Porter will use a Heroku-18 buildpack to build your application.

To point to a Dockerfile, you should pass the relative path to the Dockerfile from the root directory of the source code:

porter create web --app web-test --dockerfile /my/nested/Dockerfile

To use a cloud-native buildpack instead of a Dockerfile, you can specify the method directly:

porter create web --app web-test --method pack

Deploying from Github

By default, Porter will use the local filesystem to build, push, and deploy your application. Alternatively, if you have a local Git repository whose origin is set to a Github repository that matches one linked on Porter, you can pass in the --source flag to deploy your app:

porter create web --app web-test --source github

If your local branch is set to track changes from an upstream remote branch, Porter will try to use the connected remote and remote branch as the Github repository to link to. Otherwise, Porter will use the remote given by origin, and the same branch name as your local branch.

Deploying from a Docker Registry

The CLI also supports deploying directly from a Docker image which is hosted on a connected Docker registry. Simply specify --source registry and the application image via the --image tag:

porter create web --app web-test --source registry --image gcr.io/snowflake-12345/web-test:latest