Your First Bolt Project

Let's create a project that uses Bolt to run a simple ExpressJS server.

Adding project files
Creating Bolt Project
Adding a Bolt Service
Running Bolt Project
Listing Bolt Services
Monitoring Service Logs
Stopping Bolt Project

Adding project files

Let's add these files in our project directory.

# Below's the directory structure of our project.
bolt-project/
╰─➤ service-one/
  ╰─➤ index.js
  ╰─➤ package.json
  ╰─➤ .env.tpl

// Below's our service-one/index.js file
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const dotenv = require("dotenv")
dotenv.config()
const port = process.env.ASSIGNED_PORT || 3000;

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello World!');
});

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}`);
});

// Below's our service-one/package.json file
{
  "name": "service-one",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "description": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js"
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=18 <19"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.18.2",
    "dotenv": "^16.3.1"
  }
}

Creating Bolt Project

Once you have all the files and directories as mentioned above, you can now run bolt init command to create bolt.yaml file.

$ cd bolt-project
$ bolt init

This will create a bolt.yaml file in your project's root directory.

envfile: .env.tpl
project_id: '1687780932260'
project_name: boltproject
services: null
ingress: null

Adding a Bolt Service

Now, let's add our first service to the bolt.yaml file by running the following command from your project's root directory.

$ bolt service:add myapp service-one/
Creating app in service-one
Scanning source code
Detected Node.js app
Installed myapp service in service-one
Verifying metadata for other services..
Metadata verified

Bolt service:add command runs and automatically detects the type of service you are using and creates a bolt.service.yaml template init & includes the same into your bolt.yaml file.

# This is how your bolt.yaml file looks
envfile: .env.tpl
project_id: '1687780932260'
project_name: boltproject
services:
  myapp:
    path: service-one/
ingress: null

# This is how your service-one/bolt.service.yaml looks
container_name: myapp
stateless: true
default_service_runner: local
service_discovery_offset:
  - 9000
supported_service_runners:
  - local
  - docker
service_runners:
  local:
    envfile: .env
    build: npm install && node app.js
    ports:
      - ${ASSIGNED_PORT}:${ASSIGNED_PORT}
  docker:
    envfile: .env
    build: ./run.Dockerfile
    ports:
      - ${ASSIGNED_PORT}:${ASSIGNED_PORT}
    volumes:
      - service-one:/app
      - /app/node_modules

Running Bolt Project

Now, let's run our service using Bolt.

$ bolt up
>> Creating Ingress todo-app...
>> No ingress found in config. Skipping route generation...
$ bolt env:generate
$ bolt env:generate
$ sh -c 'npm install && node app.js'

"myapp" service is up on local platform

You can now access your service at http://localhost:9000.

Listing Bolt Services

You can also see the list of services in your bolt project and their statuses using the service:list command.

$ bolt service:list
╔═══╤══════════════╤════════╤════════════════╤════════════════╤══════════╤═══════════╗
║ # │ Service Name │ Status │ Project Runner │ Service Runner │ Port     │ ProcessId ║
╟───┼──────────────┼────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────┼───────────╢
║ 1 │ myapp        │ up     │ host           │ local          │ 9000     │ 13899     ║
╚═══╧══════════════╧════════╧════════════════╧════════════════╧══════════╧═══════════╝

Monitoring Service Logs

To monitor logs, use the following command:

$ bolt log myapp

To keep monitoring logs in live mode, use the following command:

$ bolt log --follow myapp

Stopping Bolt Project

To stop your project, you can run the following command:

$ bolt down
>> Stopping todo-app...

"myapp" is down from local platform

>> todo-app is down.

Up next

Add Bolt to Existing Project

Go back

Installing the Global CLI