Garden includes a container module type, which provides a high-level abstraction around container-based services, that's easy to understand and use.

container modules can be used to just build container images, or they can specify deployable services through the optional services key, as well as tasks and tests. So you might in one scenario use a container module to both build and deploy services, and in another you might only build the image using a container module, and then refer to that image in a helm or kubernetes module.

Below we'll walk through some usage examples. For a full reference of the container module type, please take a look at the reference.

Note: Even though we've spent the most time on supporting Kubernetes, we've tried to design this module type in a way that makes it generically applicable to other container orchestrators as well, such as Docker Swarm, Docker Compose, AWS ECS etc. This will come in handy as we add more providers, that can then use the same module type.

Building images

A bare minimum container module just specifies common required fields:

# garden.yml
kind: Module
type: container
name: my-container

If you have a Dockerfile next to this file, this is enough to tell Garden to build it. You can also specify dockerfile: <path-to-Dockerfile> if you need to override the Dockerfile name. You might also want to explicitly include or exclude files in the build context.

Using remote images

If you're not building the container image yourself and just need to deploy an external image, you can skip the Dockerfile and specify the image field:

# garden.yml
kind: Module
type: container
name: redis
image: redis:5.0.5-alpine   # <- replace with any docker image ID
services:
  ...

Publishing images

When you do have your own Dockerfile to build, and want to publish it, you also need to use the image field:

# garden.yml
kind: Module
type: container
name: my-container
image: my-org/my-container  # <- your image repo ID

This tells Garden which namespace, and optionally registry hostname (e.g. gcr.io or quay.io), to publish the image to when you run garden publish.

If you specify a tag as well, for example image: my-org/my-container:v1.2.3, that tag will also be used when publishing. If you omit it, Garden will automatically set a tag based on the source hash of the module, e.g. v-0c61a773cb.

Deploying services

container modules also have an optional services field, which you can use to deploy the container image using your configured providers (such as kubernetes/local-kubernetes).

In the case of Kubernetes, Garden will take the simplified container service specification and convert it to the corresponding Kubernetes manifests, i.e. Deployment, Service and (if applicable) Ingress resources.

Here, for example, is the spec for the frontend service in our example demo project:

kind: Module
name: frontend
description: Frontend service container
type: container
services:
  - name: frontend
    ports:
      - name: http
        containerPort: 8080
    healthCheck:
      httpGet:
        path: /hello-frontend
        port: http
    ingresses:
      - path: /hello-frontend
        port: http
      - path: /call-backend
        port: http
    dependencies:
      - backend
...

This, first of all, tells Garden that it should deploy the built frontend container as a service with the same name. We also configure a health check, a couple of ingress endpoints, and specify that this service depends on the backend service. There is a number of other options, which you can find in the container module reference.

If you need to use advanced (or otherwise very specific) features of the underlying platform, you may need to use more platform-specific module types (e.g. kubernetes or helm). The container module type is not intended to capture all those features.

Environment variables

Container services can specify environment variables, using the services[].env field:

kind: Module
type: container
name: my-container
services:
  - name: my-container-service
    ...
    env:
      MY_ENV_VAR: foo
      MY_TEMPLATED_ENV_VAR: ${var.some-project-variable}
    ...
...

env is a simple mapping of "name: value". Above we see a simple example with a string value, but you'll also commonly use template strings to interpolate variables to be consumed by the container service.

Secrets

As of Garden v0.10.1 you can reference secrets in environment variables. For Kubernetes, this translates to valueFrom.secretKeyRef fields in the Pod specs, which direct Kubernetes to mount values from Secret resources that you have created in the application namespace, as environment variables in the Pod.

For example:

kind: Module
type: container
name: my-container
services:
  - name: my-container-service
    ...
    env:
      MY_SECRET_VAR:
        secretRef:
          name: my-secret
          key: some-key-in-secret
    ...
...

This will pull the some-key-in-secret key from the my-secret Secret resource in the application namespace, and make available as an environment variable.

Note that you must create the Secret manually for the Pod to be able to reference it.

For Kubernetes, this is commonly done using kubectl. For example, to create a basic generic secret you could use:

kubectl --namespace <my-app-namespace> create secret generic --from-literal=some-key-in-secret=foo

Where <my-app-namespace> is your project namespace (which is either set with namespace in your provider config, or defaults to your project name). There are notably other, more secure ways to create secrets via kubectl. Please refer to the offical Kubernetes Secrets docs for details.

Also check out the Kubernetes Secrets example project for a working example.

Running tests

You can define both tests and tasks as part of any container module. The two are configured in very similar ways, using the tests and tasks keys, respectively. Here, for example, is a configuration for two different test suites:

kind: Module
type: container
name: my-container
...
tests:
  - name: unit
    command: [npm, test]
  - name: integ
    command: [npm, run, integ]
    dependencies:
      - some-service
...

Here we first define a unit test suite, which has no dependencies, and simply runs npm test in the container. The integ suite is similar but adds a runtime dependency. This means that before the integ test is run, Garden makes sure that some-service is running and up-to-date.

When you run garden test or garden dev we will run those tests. In both cases, the tests will be executed by running the container with the specified command in your configured environment (as opposed to locally on the machine you're running the garden CLI from).

The names and commands to run are of course completely up to you, but we suggest naming the test suites consistently across your different modules.

See the reference for all the configurable parameters for container tests.

Running tasks

Tasks are defined very similarly to tests:

kind: Module
type: container
name: my-container
...
tasks:
  - name: db-migrate
    command: [rake, db:migrate]
    dependencies:
      - my-database
...

In this example, we define a db-migrate task that runs rake db:migrate (which is commonly used for database migrations, but you can run anything you like of course). The task has a dependency on my-database, so that Garden will make sure the database is up and running before running the migration task.

Unlike tests, tasks can also be dependencies for services and other tasks. For example, you might define another task or a service with db-migrate as a dependency, so that it only runs after the migrations have been executed.

One thing to note, is that tasks should in most cases be idempotent, meaning that running the same task multiple times should be safe.

See the reference for all the configurable parameters for container tasks.

Referencing from other modules

Modules can reference outputs from each other using template strings. container modules are, for instance, often referenced by other module types such as helm module types. For example:

kind: Module
description: Helm chart for the worker container
type: helm
name: my-service
...
build:
  dependencies: [my-image]
values:
  image:
    name: ${modules.my-image.outputs.deployment-image-name}
    tag: ${modules.my-image.version}

Here, we declare my-image as a dependency for the my-service Helm chart. In order for the Helm chart to be able to reference the built container image, we must provide the correct image name and version.

For a full list of keys that are available for the container module type, take a look at the outputs reference.

Mounting volumes

container services, tasks and tests can all mount volumes, using volume modules. One such is the persistentvolumeclaim module type, supported by the kubernetes provider. To mount a volume, you need to define a volume module, and reference it using the volumes key on your services, tasks and/or tests.

Example:

kind: Module
name: my-volume
type: persistentvolumeclaim
spec:
  accessModes: [ReadWriteOnce]
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
---
kind: Module
name: my-module
type: container
services:
  - name: my-service
    replicas: 1  # <- Important! Unless your volume supports ReadWriteMany, you can't run multiple replicas with it
    volumes:
      - name: my-volume
        module: my-volume
        containerPath: /volume
    ...

This will mount the my-volume PVC at /volume in the my-service service when it is run. The my-volume module creates a PersistentVolumeClaim resource in your project namespace, and the spec field is passed directly to the same field on the PVC resource.

You can do the same for tests and tasks using the tests.volumes and tasks.volumes fields. persistentvolumeclaim volumes can of course also be referenced in kubernetes and helm modules, since they are deployed as standard PersistentVolumeClaim resources.

Take a look at the persistentvolumeclaim module type and container module docs for more details.

Shared volumes

For a volume to be shared between multiple replicas, or multiple services, tasks and/or tests, it needs to be configured with a storage class (using the storageClassName field) that supports the ReadWriteMany (RWX) access mode. The available storage classes that support RWX vary by cloud providers and cluster setups, and in many cases you need to define a StorageClass or deploy a storage class provisioner to your cluster.

You can find a list of storage options and their supported access modes here. Here are a few commonly used RWX provisioners and storage classes:

• ​NFS Server Provisioner​

• ​Azure File​

• ​AWS EFS Provisioner​

• ​Ceph (via Rook)​

Once any of those is set up you can create a persistentvolumeclaim module that uses the configured storage class. Here, for example, is how you might use a shared volume with a configured azurefile storage class:

kind: Module
name: shared-volume
type: persistentvolumeclaim
spec:
  accessModes: [ReadWriteMany]
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: azurefile
---
kind: Module
name: my-module
type: container
services:
  - name: my-service
    volumes:
      - &volume   # <- using a YAML anchor to re-use the volume spec in tasks and tests
        name: shared-volume
        module: shared-volume
        containerPath: /volume
    ...
tasks:
  - name: my-task
    volumes:
      - *volume
    ...
tests:
  - name: my-test
    volumes:
      - *volume
    ...

Here the same volume is used across a service, task and a test in the same module. You could similarly use the same volume across multiple container modules.