Quickstart for Node.js in the App Engine Standard Environment

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This quickstart shows how to deploy a sample app on App Engine. If you want to learn about coding an app for App Engine, see Building an App.

Costs

There are no costs associated with running this guide. Running this sample app alone does not exceed your free quota.

Before you begin

Before running and deploying this quickstart, install the Cloud SDK and then set up a GCP project for App Engine:

1. Download and install Cloud SDK:

   Download the SDK

   Note: If you already have the Cloud SDK installed, update it by running the following command:

   gcloud components update
   

2. Create a new project:

   gcloud projects create [YOUR_PROJECT_ID] --set-as-default
   

   Verify the project was created:

   gcloud projects describe [YOUR_PROJECT_ID]
   

   You see project details that might look like the following:

   createTime: year-month-hour
   lifecycleState: ACTIVE
   name: project-name
   parent:
   id: '433637338589'
   type: organization
   projectId: project-name-id
   projectNumber: 499227785679
   

3. Initialize your App Engine app with your project and choose its region:

   gcloud app create --project=[YOUR_PROJECT_ID]
   

   When prompted, select the region where you want your App Engine application located.

   Caution: You cannot change an app's region once it has been set.

4. Make sure billing is enabled for your project. A billing account needs to be linked to your project in order for the application to be deployed to App Engine.

   Enable billing

   Note: Running this sample app does not exceed your free quota.

5. Install the following prerequisites:

   • Download and install Git.
   • Prepare your environment for Node.js development.

App Engine locations

App Engine is regional, which means the infrastructure that runs your apps is located in a specific region and is managed by Google to be redundantly available across all the zones within that region.

Meeting your latency, availability, or durability requirements are primary factors for selecting the region where your apps are run. You can generally select the region nearest to your app's users but you should consider the location of the other GCP products and services that are used by your app. Using services across multiple locations can affect your app's latency as well as pricing.

App Engine is available in the following regions:

• northamerica-northeast1 (Montréal)
• us-central (Iowa)
• us-west2 (Los Angeles)
• us-east1 (South Carolina)
• us-east4 (Northern Virginia)
• southamerica-east1 (São Paulo)
• europe-west (Belgium)
• europe-west2 (London)
• europe-west3 (Frankfurt)
• europe-west6 (Zürich)
• asia-northeast1 (Tokyo)
• asia-northeast2 (Osaka)
• asia-east2 (Hong Kong)
• asia-south1 (Mumbai)
• australia-southeast1 (Sydney)

You cannot change an app's region after you set it.

If you already created an App Engine application, you can view the region by running the gcloud app describe command or opening the App Engine Dashboard in the GCP Console. The region of your App Engine application is listed under http://[YOUR_PROJECT_ID].appspot.com.

OK

This quickstart demonstrates a simple Node.js application written with the Express.js framework.

Important: For the best experience on Windows, upgrade to the latest version of Node.js package manager (npm) by running npm install -g npm. The latest npm installs dependencies in a flat directory structure, so installations are unlikely to conflict with the Windows maximum path length of 255 characters. If you prefer to keep using an older version of npm, you can reduce the length of paths by moving your project to the root of your drive, for example, C:\.

Download the sample code

Use our simple Hello World app for a quick overview of deploying a web service on App Engine. Follow these steps to download the code to your development environment:

1. Download the Node.js sample app repository:

   Cloud Shell

   Clone the Git repository:

   git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/nodejs-docs-samples

   Local machine

   Download the repository as a ZIP file and extract it.

   Alternatively, if you use Git, clone the repository with the following command:

   git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/nodejs-docs-samples

2. Change to the directory that contains the Hello World app:

   cd nodejs-docs-samples/appengine/hello-world/standard
   

Run Hello World locally

1. Install dependencies for the project:

   npm install
   

2. Start the HTTP server:

   npm start
   

3. View the app in your web browser:

   Cloud Shell

   In the Cloud Shell toolbar, click Web preview and select Preview on port 8080.

   Local machine

   Point your web browser to http://localhost:8080

   You can see the message Hello, world! displayed on the page.

4. Stop the HTTP server by pressing Ctrl+C in the terminal window.

Deploy and run Hello World on App Engine

1. Deploy the Hello World app on App Engine by running the following command from the hello-world/standard directory:

   gcloud app deploy
   

2. View the live app at https://YOUR_PROJECT_ID.appspot.com:

   gcloud app browse
   

The message Hello, world! is now delivered by a web server running on an App Engine instance.

Congratulations! You've successfully deployed a Node.js web service on App Engine!

Clean up

If you want to continue learning about App Engine, you can keep your GCP project and follow along with Building an App.

Alternatively, you can delete your GCP project to stop billing for all the resources used within that project.

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:
• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for this tutorial, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.
1. In the GCP Console, go to the Manage resources page.

   Go to the Manage resources page

2. In the project list, select the project you want to delete and click Delete .
3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

What's next

Now that you have experience deploying a web service on App Engine, get a more in-depth walkthrough of Node.js on App Engine by reading Building an App.

For more information about the Node.js runtime in the App Engine standard environment, see Node.js Runtime Environment.