Platform.sh YAML tags

In addition to the basic functions you should be familiar with, YAML allows for special tags. Platform.sh accepts certain custom tags to facilitate working with configuration files.

These tags work with Platform.sh configuration files, but may not elsewhere.

Include

Use the !include tag to embed external files within a given YAML file.

The tag requires two properties:

By default, path is relative to the current application’s directory (what you would define with source.root).

For example, to include another .platform/app1.yaml file in the main .platform/applications.yaml, follow these steps:

1. Write and save your .platform/app1.yaml file:

source:
  root: "/"
type: "nodejs:20"
web:
  commands:
    start: "node index.js"
upstream:
  socket_family: tcp
locations:
  "/":
    passthru: true

And including it:

myapp: !include
  type: yaml
  path: ./app1.yaml
# or as default type is "yaml", it could be:
#api: !include ./app1.yaml

You can also include files from a directory that is parent to the folder.

For example, for the following project structure:

.
├── .platform
|   └── applications.yaml
├── backend
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── requirements.txt
│   └── scripts
│       ├── ...
│       └── common_build.sh
└── frontend
    ├── README.md
    ├── package-lock.json
    ├── package.json
    ├── public
    ├── scripts
    │   └── clean.sh
    └── src

This configuration is valid:

frontend:
  source:
    root: frontend
  # ...
  hooks:
    build: !include
      type: string
      path: ../backend/scripts/common_build.sh

string

Use string to include an external file inline in the YAML file as if entered as a multi-line string.

For example, if you have a build hook like the following:

frontend:
  hooks:
    build: |
      set -e
      cp a.txt b.txt      

You could create a file for the script:

set -e
cp a.txt b.txt

And replace the hook with an include tag for an identical result:

frontend:
  hooks:
    build: !include
      type: string
      path: build.sh

This helps you break longer configuration like build scripts out into a separate file for easier maintenance.

binary

Use binary to include an external binary file inline in the YAML file. The file is base64 encoded.

For example, you could include a favicon.ico file in the same folder as your app configuration. Then you can include it as follows:

properties:
  favicon: !include
    type: binary
    path: favicon.ico

yaml

Use yaml to include an external YAML file inline as if entered directly. Because yaml is the default, you can use it without specifying the type.

For example, you could have your configuration for works defined in a worker.yaml file:

size: S
commands:
  start: python queue-worker.py
variables:
  env:
    type: worker

Then the following three configurations are exactly equivalent:

workers:
  queue1: !include "worker.yaml"

workers:
  queue1: !include
    type: yaml
    path: 'worker.yaml'

workers:
  queue1:
    size: S
    commands:
      start: python queue-worker.py
    variables:
      env:
        type: worker

This can help simplify more complex files.

Archive

Use the !archive tag for a reference to an entire directory specified relative to where the YAML file is.

For example, you might want to define a configuration directory for your Solr service. You might do so as follows:

mysearch:
  type: solr:8.0
  disk: 1024
  configuration:
    conf_dir: !archive "solr/conf"

The !archive tag means that the value for conf_dir isn’t the string solr/conf but the entire solr/conf directory. This directory is in the .platform directory, since that’s where the .platform/services.yaml file is. The solr/conf directory is then copied into the Platform.sh management system to use with the service.