Environment variables and Secrets - The Future of Qovery - Week #6

This series will reveal all the changes and features you will get in the next major release of Qovery. Let's go!

Read the previous article: Qovery goes beyond app deployment - The Future of Qovery - Week #5.

#Environment variables.

You have a NodeJS app that needs a PostgreSQL database - the good practice to connect your app to the database is to use environment variables to get the host, the port, and the credentials. 

With the next release of the web interface, managing environment variables will be easier than before.

The same system of "scope" will remain - meaning you will still be able to set environment variables for many applications if you need it. Four scopes exist:

• BUILT_IN: Automatically generated variables based on your configuration (e.g., requested databases) propagated to all projects, environments, and applications.
• PROJECT: Variables at the project level are shared across all environments and all applications of the project.
• ENVIRONMENT: Variables at the environment level are shared across all project applications in one given environment.
• APPLICATION: Variables available for one application in a single environment

#Secrets

Now let's say that your app needs to use Stripe to bill your user. You want to keep this secret secure and immutable from any change. This is why we introduce Secret Management. Secrets are encrypted and can't be revealed and modified once they are set. 

Secrets can also be scoped, overridden, and aliased. 

Qovery takes care of injecting your environment variables and secrets during the build time, deployment, and runtime. 

#Conclusion

We spent some time improving the UX to manage environment variables - we also considered adding the Secret Management feature to avoid using sensitive data inside your app. My team and I are excited to release our next major version of Qovery. If you are interested in joining the beta in early June, let me know by contacting us on Discord.

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See you next week -- same hour, same place 👋

Romaric from Qovery -- We are hiring