Builders
When you deploy an app on Boltic, the app has to be assembled into a deployable image. That’s the job that builders take on. There are four kinds of builders - dockerfile, buildpacks, built-in, and image.
Built-In
If you don’t want to worry about the details of the build process, you can use the built-in builders that come with Boltic. These builders are pre-configured to build apps in a specific language or framework. They are optimized for speed and ease of use, and are the recommended choice for most users who don’t have specific requirements for their build process. The built-in builders work on top of pre-configured dockerfiles.
Dockerfile
The dockerfile builder is the default builder, invoked when there is a Dockerfile and there are no build settings in the boltic.yaml file. It looks for a Dockerfile in the current directory and uses that to construct the deployable image. If you are familiar with Docker, you’ll be at home with this option.
This is the most flexible of the options, but with that flexibility comes the need to write Dockerfiles and the associated quirks of the Docker build system. Which is why we have further build options in Boltic that simplify the process.
Buildpacks
Platforms like Heroku and Cloud Foundry have the idea of a buildpack, a building process that’s run entirely in its own container, to construct their deployable images. These buildpacks are then bundled into a "builder" stack with an operating system and can be called upon to build an app. The buildpack idea has been standardized with Cloud Native Buildpacks. Buildpacks use several tests to detect if they can build the application and if they can, then proceed to run the scripts needed to create an image.
A library of standardized buildpacks is available from Paketo Buildpacks and it’s from this library, Heroku’s Heroku20 buildpack, Google buildpacks, and any other publically available buildback of your liking that you can use in Boltic by using the buildpacks setting in boltic.yaml.
Buildpack configuration options - such as YARN_PRODUCTION in the Heroku Nodejs Buildpack - can be set via Docker build arguments.
The deploy process works the same way with buildpacks.
Image
Finally, if you already have a Docker image in a repository and just want to deploy that, you can skip the building process and go straight to the deploy with the image build option.
Please note that the image build option currently supports only public repositories and images. Support for private repositories and images will be added soon.