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Installing a Node.js application using the API

Prerequisites​

To install a Node.js application, you will need to have the following:

  • The project ID of an existing project (how to create a project)
  • The application and version ID of the generic custom Node.js application (see next section)

Determine the app and app version ID​

Before installing a Node.js application, you will need to determine the application ID and version ID of the generic custom Node.js application.

For this, call the /v2/apps endpoint, and find the "Node.js" application. It should have a stable ID of 3e7f920b-a711-4d2f-9871-661e1b41a2f0. You can then use that ID to retrieve the recommended version to install for this app, by calling the /v2/apps/{appID}/versions endpoint. You can filter the returned versions by the recommended property.

Please note that the actual version is rather inconsequential, as it refers only to the starter template used to create the application. The actual version of the application will be determined by your own code.

Install the application​

To deploy your application, you will need to call the POST /v2/projects/{projectID}/appinstallations endpoint. The relevant fields are the following:

  • appVersionId needs to be the app version ID that you retrieved in the previous step.
  • userInputs needs to be an array of objects, each containing a name and value property. The allowed values for name are contained in the userInputs array of the app version object. In the case of Node.js, the only allowed value is entrypoint, which is the command that will be run to start your application.
  • updatePolicy needs to be set to none, as you will typically want to update your application by yourself.

The complete HTTP request should look like this:

POST /v2/project/{projectID}/appinstallations HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "appVersionId": "97fb8684-3fe3-4720-86fb-fb0524ae88d1",
  "description": "Your Node.js app",
  "updatePolicy": "none",
  "userInputs": [{
    "name": "entrypoint",
    "value": "yarn start"
  }]
}

The response will contain the installation ID, that you can subsequently use to access your application.

info
For details please refer to the endpoint documentation for the following endpoint: app-request-appinstallation

To observe the installation status, you can call the /v2/appinstallations/{installationID} endpoint. Pay special attention to the installationPath field; this will contain the directory in your project file system that you should deploy your application to.