Feature/107 compose required env #108

2026-08-21T17:38:16-05:00

bermudalamb commented

2026-08-21 17:38:16 -05:00

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bermudalamb self-assigned this 2026-08-21 17:38:16 -05:00

bermudalamb added 2 commits 2026-08-21 17:38:18 -05:00

fix(qa): give the container the environment variables it now requires (#107 ) 0710cccac1

QA refuses to start: "UPLOADS_DIR is required and is not set."

#64 made UPLOADS_DIR always required, on the reasoning that its fallback of /app/uploads is correct inside the container and wrong everywhere else, so nothing should inherit it silently. That reasoning stands — but docker-compose.qa.yml had never set it either. QA was relying on exactly the fallback that change set out to stop people relying on, so the first deploy after it merged is the first one to fail.

That is an incomplete check, and one that looked confident. #64 verified both CI workflows set every always-required variable and said so. CI is not what deploys. The compose file, which is, was never opened.

ADMIN_GATE_SECRET was missing for a different reason, and the container reported it unset even after it was added to the Portainer stack. That is not a mistake, it is how compose works: stack variables are substituted into this file as ${VAR}, not handed to the container. A service receives exactly what its environment block lists. #87 already wrote that down; this is the first time it has bitten.

The two get different treatment for a reason. UPLOADS_DIR is hardcoded because it is not a secret and because it has to match the right-hand side of the volume mapping — splitting one value across two places in the same file is how they drift apart. ADMIN_GATE_SECRET is interpolated from the stack so the secret itself never enters the repository, and the header comment now lists it among the required stack variables.

Verified by feeding the environment docker compose config actually renders into validateEnv, the same function that was rejecting it: zero errors and zero warnings, the absence of warnings confirming the admin gate is now configured rather than merely quiet.

Production runs from a stack outside this repository with the same history and will refuse to boot on its next rebuild unless UPLOADS_DIR is set there first. This commit does not fix that.

Closes #107
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

test(backend): fail the build when the compose file lacks a required variable (#107 )

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a2500a9901

The one-line compose fix in the previous commit unblocks QA. This is the part that stops it happening again, and it is the more useful half.

The failure was not really a missing variable. It was that nothing connected two files: envValidation.ts gained a required variable, docker-compose.qa.yml did not set it, and nothing noticed until a container refused to boot on deploy. CI passed the whole time, because CI supplies its own environment and never reads the compose file — which is exactly why "CI is green" was the wrong evidence to have offered.

So a unit test now reads the compose file and asserts it sets everything the validator demands. It imports ALWAYS_REQUIRED rather than restating it, which is the only version of this test worth having: a copied list would pass forever while the next variable added to the validator went unguarded in precisely the same way.

Two further assertions earn their place. UPLOADS_DIR is hardcoded rather than taken from a stack variable on the grounds that it must agree with the volume mapping, so the test checks it against the mount rather than leaving that a claim in a comment. And ADMIN_GATE_SECRET must be present as an interpolation rather than a literal, since a secret in the repository would defeat the point of having one.

There is also a test guarding the test: a regex that matched nothing would make every other assertion in the file vacuously true, so one case asserts that parsing found entries at all.

Fired deliberately rather than assumed. Removing the UPLOADS_DIR line reproduces the original failure as two failing tests; restoring it returns to ten passing. A guard that has only ever been observed passing is not known to guard anything.

What this cannot do is check production, which runs from a Portainer stack outside this repository. That gap is now written into the README beside the validation rules, along with the reason a variable set only in Portainer's stack UI never reaches the container: stack variables are interpolated into the compose file, not handed to the service.

172 unit tests pass, lint unchanged at 4 warnings.

Refs #107
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

bermudalamb merged commit 0e9f2a3d82 into main

2026-08-21 17:39:30 -05:00

bermudalamb deleted branch feature/107-compose-required-env

2026-08-21 17:39:32 -05:00

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Reference: bermudalamb/redefined-designs#108