Deploy Slawk

Deploy Slawk to GCP

Prerequisites Check

Before anything, verify the user has the tools installed:

gcloud --version

If gcloud is not installed, tell the user to install it: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install

Check authentication:

gcloud auth list --filter=status:ACTIVE --format="value(account)"

If not authenticated, run gcloud auth login.

Step 0: Detect Existing Deployment

Check if the slawk service already exists on Cloud Run:

gcloud run services list --format="table(name,region)" --filter="metadata.name=slawk" 2>/dev/null

• If the service exists → this is a redeploy. Go to the Redeploy Flow.
• If the service does not exist → this is a first deploy. Go to First Deploy Flow.

Redeploy Flow

For redeployments, all infrastructure (Cloud SQL, APIs, IAM, Artifact Registry) is already set up. The only steps are: push code, pull existing config, and deploy.

1. Get existing config

Resolve the project and region, then pull env vars from the running service:

# Get the active GCP project
gcloud config get-value project

# Get the region from the service listing
gcloud run services list --filter="metadata.name=slawk" --format="value(region)"

# Get all env vars from the running service
gcloud run services describe slawk --project=PROJECT_ID --region=REGION \
  --format='yaml(spec.template.spec.containers[0].env)'

Extract: DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, GCS_BUCKET_NAME, VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY, VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY, VAPID_SUBJECT from the output. No need to ask the user for any of these.

2. Push unpushed commits

The deploy.sh script clones from the main branch on GitHub. Check for unpushed commits:

git log origin/main..HEAD --oneline

If there are unpushed commits, ask the user for confirmation before pushing, then push:

git push origin main

3. Deploy

Run deploy.sh with RUN_SEED=false and all env vars pulled from the existing service:

export GCP_PROJECT_ID=PROJECT_ID
export REGION=REGION
export DATABASE_URL="<from existing service>"
export JWT_SECRET="<from existing service>"
export GCS_BUCKET_NAME="<from existing service>"
export VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY="<from existing service>"
export VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY="<from existing service>"
export VAPID_SUBJECT="<from existing service>"
export RUN_SEED=false

bash deploy.sh

Use a 10-minute timeout for the build command.

4. Verify

gcloud run services describe slawk --project=PROJECT_ID --region=REGION --format='value(status.url)'

Report the URL to the user.

First Deploy Flow

Step 1: Project Setup

Ask the user which GCP project to use, or create a new one. Default project name: slawk.

# Check if project exists
gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID 2>/dev/null

# Or create one
gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID --name="slawk"
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

Link a billing account (required for Cloud SQL and Cloud Run):

gcloud billing accounts list
gcloud billing projects link PROJECT_ID --billing-account=BILLING_ACCOUNT_ID

Ask the user which region to deploy to (default: us-central1).

Step 2: Enable APIs

gcloud services enable \
  cloudbuild.googleapis.com \
  run.googleapis.com \
  sqladmin.googleapis.com \
  artifactregistry.googleapis.com \
  storage.googleapis.com \
  --project=PROJECT_ID

Step 3: Create Artifact Registry Repository

gcloud artifacts repositories create cloud-run-source-deploy \
  --repository-format=docker \
  --location=REGION \
  --project=PROJECT_ID 2>/dev/null || true

Step 4: Build the Base Image

The base image caches npm dependencies for faster builds. This only needs to run once (or when dependencies change).

chmod +x build-base.sh
GCP_PROJECT_ID=PROJECT_ID REGION=REGION bash build-base.sh

If build-base.sh or the Dockerfile ARG BASE_IMAGE reference a hardcoded project/region, update them to match the user's chosen project and region.

Step 5: Create Cloud SQL Instance

# Create a PostgreSQL 15 instance (takes 5-10 minutes)
gcloud sql instances create slawk-db \
  --database-version=POSTGRES_15 \
  --tier=db-f1-micro \
  --region=REGION \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --storage-size=10GB \
  --storage-auto-increase

# Generate and set a secure postgres password
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 24)
gcloud sql users set-password postgres \
  --instance=slawk-db \
  --password=$POSTGRES_PASSWORD \
  --project=PROJECT_ID

# Create the database
gcloud sql databases create slackclone \
  --instance=slawk-db \
  --project=PROJECT_ID

The Cloud SQL connection name is: PROJECT_ID:REGION:slawk-db

Step 6: Grant Cloud Build Permissions

PROJECT_NUMBER=$(gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID --format='value(projectNumber)')

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
  --member="serviceAccount:${PROJECT_NUMBER}@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/run.admin" --quiet

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
  --member="serviceAccount:${PROJECT_NUMBER}@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/iam.serviceAccountUser" --quiet

Step 7: Push code and deploy

Make sure all commits are pushed to main on GitHub (deploy.sh clones from there).

export GCP_PROJECT_ID=PROJECT_ID
export REGION=REGION
export DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:PASSWORD@localhost/slackclone?host=/cloudsql/PROJECT_ID:REGION:slawk-db"
export JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
export GCS_BUCKET_NAME=slawk-uploads-PROJECT_ID
export VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY=<generated>
export VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY=<generated>
export VAPID_SUBJECT=mailto:admin@slawk.dev
export RUN_SEED=true

chmod +x deploy.sh
bash deploy.sh

Generate VAPID keys with npx web-push generate-vapid-keys if not already available.

Set RUN_SEED=true on first deploy to populate the database with demo data.

Step 8: Verify

gcloud run services describe slawk --project=PROJECT_ID --region=REGION --format='value(status.url)'

Open the URL in a browser and verify it loads.

Important Notes

• The deploy.sh script clones from the main branch on GitHub — always push before deploying.
• Cloud SQL instance creation takes 5-10 minutes on first deploy. Be patient.
• The JWT_SECRET should be consistent across deploys. Changing it invalidates all existing sessions.
• Never set RUN_SEED=true on a redeploy — it will re-seed the production database.
• Use a 10-minute timeout for the Cloud Build step.

Source: ncvgl/slawk — distributed by TomeVault.