Use the database in the example app spec
complete
P
Phillip Stromberg
In https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/app-spec/ you define a Postgres database called postgres-db, but never reference it anywhere in the services. Is the
databases: - name:
field supposed to be the hostname? Should I put "postgres-db" in my "DB_HOST" environment variable for my app? Should I put "postgres-db:25060" or whatever if the managed database doesn't use the standard port? It doesn't seem to be working with the normal public DNS hostname of my database so I guess it's not that.
Dan Finn
marked this post as
complete
Kate Erickson
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. You were right that the app spec defined a database but didn’t show how a service uses it, and that the docs didn’t clearly tie the database name to bindable variable usage.
The docs have been updated and the app spec example now shows a service using the database (e.g. web-service env vars like DB_HOST and DATABASE_URL set to bindable variables), and a new section explains the pattern. The docs also clarify that the database name is the component name for bindable variables (e.g. ${postgres-db.HOSTNAME}), not the hostname.
Thanks again for pointing out this gap. We appreciate it!