Getting started with manifest files

What is a manifest file?

A manifest files allows you to be more explicit about your application composition and control settings that are not usually available through the user interface. The file describes the setup of the components that make up your application. The manifest file is completely optional - you can use Prepress without ever creating a manifest file.

How do I use a manifest file?

Manifest settings are defined in a file called manifest.yml. For Prepress applications the path for manifest.yml is:

<application-root>/.cloud66/manifest.yml

To get started:

1. Add this file to your code
2. Populate it with appropriate values (see below for examples)
3. Commit your changes to your repository
4. Deploy your application

Is my yaml valid?

A working example

In this example we are going to modify the configuration of the simple application we used in our Getting started guide.

What you’ll need

Before you start, please check you have the following:

• A Cloud 66 Account — If you don’t already have one, sign up for a Cloud 66 account. You’ll get free unlimited access to all products for 4 weeks.
• Application code — Application code should be hosted in a (secure) publicly accessible git repository and pre-built images should be hosted in image publicly accessible repositories.
• A Cloud account linked to Cloud 66 or your own servers set up

Setting up your first manifest file

To set up a manifest.yml file for your application:

1. Create a file named manifest.yml in a folder named .cloud66, that is in turn located in the root of your source code and checked into your repository.
2. Add YAML from one of the samples below to your manifest.yml file.
3. Save the file and check that the YAML is valid.
4. Commit the file to your repo & deploy your application

YAML sample: Jekyll

You’ll see that we’re defining several things in this YAML:

• The language your application is written in (ruby)
• The version of Ruby that it’s using ( language_version)
• The framework (jekyll) and version (1.2.3)
• Your custom build command (jekyll build --config _alt_config.yml)

prepress:
  configuration:
    language: ruby
    language_version: 2.5
    framework: jekyll
    framework_version: 1.2.3
    build_command: jekyll build --config _alt_config.yml

YAML sample: Gatsby

You’ll see that we’re defining several things in this YAML:

• The language your application is written in (nodejs)
• The version of NodeJS that it’s using ( language_version)
• The framework (gatsby) and version (
• Your custom build command (gatsby build --profile --prefix-paths)

prepress:
  configuration:
    language: nodejs
    language_version: 12.13
    framework: gatsby
    framework_version: 3.14.0
    build_command: gatsby build --profile --prefix-paths

YAML sample: Hugo

You’ll see that we’re defining several things in this YAML:

• The language your application is written in (go)
• The framework (hugo)
• Your custom build command (hugo --gc --minify --config debugconfig.toml)

prepress:
  configuration:
    language: go
    framework: hugo
    build_command: hugo --gc --minify --config debugconfig.toml

What’s next?

• For more detailed information on the compostion of your Manifest, please read our How-To Guide.
• Setting up DNS records for your Prepress app
• Configuring continuous deployment using redeployment hooks
• Setting up preview deployments

Need help with deployments?

Contact Support

More Questions?

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