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Infrastructure Provisioning

The infra/ directory contains a Pulumi project (TypeScript) that provisions all Azure resources required to run the RDS App. No Pulumi Cloud account is required — state is stored locally.

What Gets Created

Running pulumi up provisions four Azure resources:

Resource Purpose
Resource Group Logical container for all RDS resources
MongoDB vCore Cluster (Cosmos DB) Application database
App Service Plan (Linux) Compute plan for the web app
Web App (Node.js on Linux) Hosts the Express server and React frontend

Pulumi also configures the Web App's Application settings (environment variables) automatically, including MONGO_URI, AUTH_SECRET, and the Twilio credentials. See Environment Variables for the meaning of each variable.

Prerequisites

Quick Start

From the repository root:

# 1. Install dependencies
cd infra
npm install

# 2. Log in to Azure
az login

# 3. Use local Pulumi state (no account needed)
pulumi login --local

# 4. Create a stack
pulumi stack init prod

# 5. Set required config
pulumi config set location westus2
pulumi config set resourceGroupName my-rds-rg
pulumi config set mongoClusterName my-rds-db
pulumi config set mongoDbName main
pulumi config set appServicePlanName my-rds-plan
pulumi config set webAppName my-rds-app
pulumi config set skuName B1

# 6. Set secrets
pulumi config set --secret mongoAdminLogin <your-admin-user>
pulumi config set --secret mongoAdminPassword <your-admin-password>
pulumi config set --secret authSecret <your-auth-secret>
pulumi config set --secret twilioAccountSid <your-sid>
pulumi config set --secret twilioAuthToken <your-token>
pulumi config set --secret twilioVerifySid <your-verify-sid>

# 7. Deploy
pulumi up

Secrets

mongoAdminPassword, authSecret, and the Twilio credentials contain sensitive values. Always use pulumi config set --secret so they are encrypted in the stack state file.

Config Reference

Key Required Default Description
resourceGroupName Yes — Azure Resource Group name
location Yes — Azure region (e.g. westus2)
mongoClusterName Yes — MongoDB vCore cluster name
mongoDbName Yes — MongoDB database name (e.g. main)
appServicePlanName Yes — App Service Plan name
webAppName Yes — Web App name (globally unique)
skuName Yes — App Service Plan SKU (e.g. B1, P1v2)
mongoAdminLogin Yes (secret) — MongoDB admin username
mongoAdminPassword Yes (secret) — MongoDB admin password
authSecret Yes (secret) — Auth secret for JWT signing
twilioAccountSid Yes (secret) — Twilio Account SID
twilioAuthToken Yes (secret) — Twilio Auth Token
twilioVerifySid Yes (secret) — Twilio Verify Service SID
nodeVersion No 22-lts Node.js version for App Service
nodeEnv No production NODE_ENV value
mongoServerVersion No 8.0 MongoDB server version
mongoSku No M20 MongoDB vCore cluster SKU
mongoDiskSizeGb No 128 MongoDB disk size in GB

App settings managed by Pulumi

When infrastructure is provisioned with Pulumi, the Web App's Application settings (MONGO_URI, MONGO_DB_NAME, AUTH_SECRET, Twilio credentials, etc.) are set automatically. There is no need to configure them manually in the Azure Portal.

Importing Existing Resources

If Azure resources already exist (e.g. from a previous Terraform setup), they can be imported instead of recreated:

  1. Find each resource's Azure ID (from the Azure Portal or az CLI).
  2. Add { import: "<azure-resource-id>" } as the third argument to each Pulumi resource constructor in index.ts.
  3. Run pulumi up — Pulumi adopts the resources without modifying them.
  4. Remove the import options and run pulumi up again to verify no changes are detected.

Import order: Resource Group → MongoDB Cluster → App Service Plan → Web App.

Tear Down

pulumi destroy
pulumi stack rm prod

Troubleshooting

  • az login errors — Verify az account show returns a valid subscription. Set the ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID environment variable if needed.
  • Name conflicts — mongoClusterName and webAppName must be globally unique across Azure.
  • SKU not available — Some SKUs are region-specific. Try B1 or P1v2 in the chosen region.
  • Node version format — Use 22-lts (not v22 or 22.x). This maps to NODE|22-lts in the App Service config.

After provisioning, proceed to Deployment to push the application code to the new Azure App Service.