Creating JSON Configuration Files for Your Deployments

To deploy a version of your app with the Admin API, you define the configuration details of your version using a JSON formatted file. You can either manually create the configuration file or convert an existing app.yaml file.

There are two parts to creating a JSON formatted configuration file:

  1. Define the configuration information for the version that you want to deploy.
  2. Define a deployment section to specify all your app's files and resources that you want to deploy.

Before you begin

You must first upload all the files and resources of your app to a Cloud Storage bucket before you can create the app.json configuration file.

Manually creating the JSON configuration file

Use the following steps if you need to manually create the configuration file, for example, when your app excludes an app.yaml or your existing Java app uses an appengine-web.xml file.

To manually create the app.json configuration file for deploying your app with the Admin API:

  1. Create a file name app.json.
  2. Use the configuration information that is provided in the apps.services.versions collection to define and configure the version that you want to deploy.
  3. Use the template in the Defining the deployment section to specify all the files and resources that you want to deploy from your Cloud Storage bucket.

Also see the Example section below to assist you with creating your app.json configuration file.

Converting an app.yaml file into the JSON format

You can use the convert_yaml.py tool to convert and generate an app.json version from an existing app.yaml file.

If an app.yaml file exists, which you normally use to manually deploy versions of your app, you can retain that information by converting those configuration settings into the JSON format.

Prerequisite

Download and install the convert_yaml.py tool, including the specified requirements.

Converting YAML files with the convert_yaml.py tool

To convert your app.yaml file with the convert_yaml.py tool:

  1. Locate and note the directory path to your app.yaml.

    Example:

    cd root/apps-container/my-application/

    Where the app.yaml of the example-python-app.py application might look like:

    service: default
version: v1
runtime: python27
threadsafe: true

handlers:
- url: /.*
  script: example-python-app.py

  2. Navigate to the local directory where you downloaded the convert_yaml.py tool, for example:

    cd root/tools/appengine-config-transformer

  3. Create the app.json file from the app.yaml file by running the convert_yaml.py tool:

    python ./convert_yaml.py [DIRECTORY_PATH]/app.yaml > [DIRECTORY_PATH]/app.json

    Where [DIRECTORY_PATH] is the directory path to your app.yaml file.

    A JSON version (app.json) of your app.yaml file is created in the [DIRECTORY_PATH] directory.

  4. Ensure that the ID of your version is defined in the app.json configuration file.

    If your app.yaml file excludes the version: [VERSION_NAME] element, then the "id": [VERSION_NAME] element is not included in your app.json file after the conversion. For example, if you want to set your version ID to v1, you must manually add the following line to your app.json file:

    "id": "v1",

  5. Use the template in the Defining the deployment section to specify all the files and resources of your app that you want to deploy.

Also see the Example section below to assist you with creating your app.json configuration file.

Defining the deployment section

To create a deployment section in the app.json configuration file and manually define all of the resources that are located in your Cloud Storage bucket, you use the reference information in the deployment section of the apps.services.versions collection. If you are defining individual files, you can use the following template:

"deployment": {
  "files": {
    "my-resource-file1": {
      "sourceUrl": "https://storage.googleapis.com/[MY_BUCKET_ID]/my-application/my-resource-file1"
    },
  }
},

Where my-resource-file1 defines the file name and relative directory path of where you want to deploy that file in App Engine.

Example app.json file

Use the following example app.json to help you create your configuration file.

In the following app.json example, the v1 version ID is defined along with a deployment section that includes two example source files from the [MY_BUCKET_ID] Cloud Storage bucket.

{
  "deployment": {
    "files": {
      "example-resource-file1": {
        "sourceUrl": "https://storage.googleapis.com/[MY_BUCKET_ID]/example-application/example-resource-file1"
      },
      "images/example-resource-file2": {
        "sourceUrl": "https://storage.googleapis.com/[MY_BUCKET_ID]/example-application/images/example-resource-file2"
      },
    }
  },
  "id": "v1",
  "handlers": [
    {
      "urlRegex": "/.*",
      "script": {
        "scriptPath": "example-python-app.py"
      }
    },
  ],
  "runtime": "python27",
  "threadsafe": true,
}

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