This project was originally published in Deploying a scalable web application with Docker and Kubernetes from the Postman Engineering blog.

Pre-requisites for local development

1. Download and install Node.js and a package manager like npm, and
2. A container platform like Docker. Remember to start Docker on your machine.

For Development

npm install // install dependencies
npm start // start app on 3000
npm run start-server // start server on 5500

For Production

1. Environment variables: Create a new file called .env located in the root of your project directory. Add your production domain and docker hub username. See the example in .env.example.
2. API tests: If you plan to run Postman tests, then update the bin/deploy.sh file by selecting a method of running your Postman tests. To run either of the last 2 options, update your Postman collection UID and environment UID in bin/deploy.sh and also add your Postman API key to the .env file you created in the previous step.
3. Describe deployment: Update the deployment-prod.yaml file to describe your backend deployment. Update the deployment-ui-prod.yaml file to describe your frontend deployment. These files will include your container image, resource allocation, the desired number of replicas, and other important information.
4. Deploy: Run the deployment script

npm run deploy // run API tests, then deploy frontend and backend to production

For the deployment, I used a hosted Kubernetes provider called Kubesail that creates a free managed namespace. However, the underlying deployment utility npx deploy-to-kube supports any Kubernetes cluster. By running it inside your app's directory, this utility will automatically generate a Dockerfile (if it doesn't exist), build and push deployment images, generate Kubernetes configuration files (if it doesn't exist), and trigger a deployment on your Kubernetes cluster.