Creating a Copilot App

These are the steps I followed to create a new copilot app.

  • copilot app init

    • the app is a group of jobs and services

    • on init, it creates a StackSet role in cloud formation that will hold

      all the jobs and services; and an IAM role for all the permissions

  • copilot init

    • this prompts you to create your first job/svc

    • follow dialogues to create job (not documented here)

  • copilot env init

    • just create a prod environment with defaults

    • this is a space that holds things later, e.g. credentials

    • creates tons of connections to Cloud Formation, VPCs etc. Not sure what really happens

  • copilot env deploy

    • pushes everything live

    • again unsure what happens but is just required subsequent to env init

  • copilot secret init

    • we need secrets to provide the equivalent of the .env file used locally

    • create one per, then add an entry to the job’s manifest YAML file like so:

    PROD_PASSWORD: /copilot/${COPILOT_APPLICATION_NAME}/${COPILOT_ENVIRONMENT_NAME}/secrets/PROD_PASSWORD PROD_URL: /copilot/${COPILOT_APPLICATION_NAME}/${COPILOT_ENVIRONMENT_NAME}/secrets/PROD_URL S3_ACCESS: /copilot/${COPILOT_APPLICATION_NAME}/${COPILOT_ENVIRONMENT_NAME}/secrets/S3_ACCESS S3_SECRET: /copilot/${COPILOT_APPLICATION_NAME}/${COPILOT_ENVIRONMENT_NAME}/secrets/S3_SECRET

  • now that the job definition exists, and the secrets to which that definition refers are created, you can

deploy the job with copilot job deploy

  • you should see it building the docker image with from the file you specified

  • it then pushes this image to the ECR

  • then, there are a handful of other tasks run at once

    • IAM roles

    • CloudWatch log group

    • ECS task definition

  • to test any job, you can call copilot job run

    • you should see a running task in the ECS menu

    • you should see new logs in the corresponding CloudWatch log group

  • copilot pipeline init

    • this creates the manifest and buildspec for a new pipeline, which is an automatic

    sourcing and deployment process

  • copilot pipeline deploy

    • this launches the defined pipeline

    • it will ask you to authenticate a connection to your github repo; click around a bunch

    and enter your passwords etc