I'm trying to set up a CI/CD pipeline that deploys services to Azure Container Apps, utilizing GitHub Actions for continuous integration and deployment, Terraform for infrastructure management, and Gitflow as my branching strategy. I'm planning to manage different environments like development, testing, and production using branches or tags. Terraform will handle my infrastructure as code, and Docker images will be built and deployed through GitHub Actions. My main question is about how Terraform integrates into this process—specifically, when it should kick in and when it should wrap up. Also, I'm a bit lost on the deployment configuration aspect; originally, I thought a simple CLI setup would suffice, but I realize it can get tricky with environment-specific settings, such as CPU allocations, CORS settings varying by environment, and managing secrets or environment variables. Does anyone have an example or reference that relates to this setup or some general tips? Thanks!
3 Answers
Using Terraform with Azure Container Apps can be quite interesting! I maintain a separate repository just for infrastructure that deploys the container apps environment along with any supporting infrastructure. I typically set it up to ignore changes to the template section of the container app resource. In my deployment pipeline, I provide a config YAML file to ensure the container app has the correct image, volumes, and resource allocations.
Here are some articles to help you get started! You can manage secrets in GitHub Actions and pass them as Terraform variables. Alternatively, you can use Terraform to create a key vault and manually add your secrets there. Check these links for more insights:
- [Using Secrets in GitHub Actions](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-for-github-actions/security-guides/using-secrets-in-github-actions)
- [Managing Environments for Deployment](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/managing-workflow-runs-and-deployments/managing-deployments/managing-environments-for-deployment)
- [Terraform Tips for Non-Sensitive Variables](https://spacelift.io/blog/terraform-tfvars)
I've never tried Gitflow as the branching strategy for Terraform myself, but I'm curious about how it would work in practice!
I've experimented with various Git strategies for Terraform, and honestly, the one that has worked best for me is trunk-based development. You might want to consider keeping your infrastructure code separate from your application code to implement different strategies effectively.
I agree, separating the repos for Terraform and application code can help a lot because Git branching strategies can differ significantly between them.
Thanks for sharing! When you first set this up, did you put a placeholder image in the Terraform template section? How do you handle managing secrets and environment variables during deployment?