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Micro-Apps Guide

How standalone apps under apps/* (e.g. apps/micro-app-poc) are built, served, and deployed alongside the root Waldur Homeport app. This is the systematic explanation the Dockerfile, docker/nginx-tpl.conf, docker/entrypoint.sh, and .gitlab-ci.yml comments point back to — read this instead of reconstructing the mechanism from those comments.

What a micro-app is

Any directory under apps/* is a standalone Vite app, its own yarn workspace member (root package.json's "workspaces" already includes "apps/*"), consuming packages/* the way a genuinely separate micro-frontend would — not through the root app's own src/, its vite.config.ts aliases, or its Tailwind theme overrides. See apps/micro-app-poc for a concrete example and what building one that way surfaced about packages/*'s own portability gaps.

A new micro-app that wants the same Sidebar/TopBar chrome, page-content error boundary, and app bootstrap sequence (auth, font/brand-token, sidebar-style, i18n, Sentry) doesn't need to rebuild any of that — see packages/shell (waldur-shell) and apps/micro-app-poc/README.md's "Shared app-shell" section. Reach for it directly rather than re-deriving the same wiring per app.

The convention is directory presence, not a manifest. Every apps/* member is picked up automatically — by yarn install (via the workspace glob), by the Dockerfile's build loop, by CI's typecheck/build job, and by the generated nginx routing. A new micro-app needs zero Dockerfile/nginx/entrypoint.sh/CI changes — see Adding a new micro-app.

Local development

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yarn workspace <package-name> dev   # dev server, own port (see its vite.config.ts)
yarn apps:typecheck                 # tsc --noEmit for every apps/* member
yarn apps:build                     # vite build for every apps/* member

apps:typecheck/apps:build (root package.json) run via yarn workspaces foreach -A --include 'apps/*' run <script> — one generic command instead of a hand-maintained script pair per app.

Testing the subpath locally, with HMR

The root app's own vite.config.ts can proxy a micro-app's subpath to its dev server, mirroring the production nginx routing below without a full Docker build — see apps/micro-app-poc/README.md for the exact commands. This needs the micro-app's own vite.config.ts to set its base to match (env-var-gated, so standalone dev stays at /) — otherwise Vite's own dev paths (/@vite/client, /@fs/*) collide between the two dev servers sharing one origin. Currently hardcoded to micro-app-poc's one proxy entry/port; generalizing to every apps/* member automatically would need a small discoverable ports registry (e.g. extending the waldur.deploy package.json convention below with a devPort field) — not worth it with only one real example today.

Build & serve pipeline

Every apps/* member ships inside the same production image as the root app, at its own subpath on the same domain/port — not as a separate deployment. Three files cooperate, each scanning for apps/* content rather than naming it:

  1. Dockerfile — after the root app's own vite build, loops over apps/*/, builds each with vite build <app_dir> --base="$ASSET_PATH<name>/" (the same $ASSET_PATH build arg the root app's build uses — see "ASSET_PATH (relocated deployments)" below), and nests the result into dist/<name>/ alongside the root app's own dist/. The final image stage is then one single COPY of the whole tree — no per-app COPY lines.
  2. docker/entrypoint.sh — at container start, generates one nginx location block per apps/* directory it finds under the html root, into /etc/nginx/conf.d/micro-apps.conf (created empty at build time so the include below is never missing). It also substitutes the real API_URL into every app's index.orig.html (root's and every micro-app's — anywhere it finds that filename), the same __API_URL__-placeholder mechanism the root app uses via VITE_API_URL=__API_URL__ at build time.
  3. docker/nginx-tpl.conf — just includes that generated file. No micro-app location block is hand-written here.

ASSET_PATH (relocated deployments)

ASSET_PATH lets an entire deployment (root app + every micro-app) be relocated under a URL prefix — used by the k8s MR-preview environment, which sets it to /<mr-id>/ so multiple preview deployments can share one domain. It exists in two forms that must not be confused:

  • Build-time (ARG ASSET_PATH="/" in the Dockerfile): a full path with a leading slash, e.g. /21684/. Baked into every JS/CSS asset URL at vite build time, for both the root app and every micro-app.
  • Runtime (a container env var of the same name, e.g. 21684/, no leading slash — the leading slash comes from the literal / already in docker/nginx-tpl.conf's location /${ASSET_PATH}): drives nginx routing and entrypoint.sh's "Handle asset path" step, which duplicates the whole html tree (root app and every micro-app directory) into /usr/share/nginx/html/${ASSET_PATH}/.

A micro-app's own build and its generated nginx location block both key off $ASSET_PATH for exactly this reason: if the root app moves under a prefix, a micro-app must move with it, not stay pinned to the domain root. Get this wrong and a micro-app's location block silently never matches under a relocated deployment — requests fall through to the root app's own SPA fallback instead. (This exact bug existed briefly during development; verified fixed by simulating the full pipeline locally with both an empty and a set ASSET_PATH.)

Opting out of production: waldur.deploy

A micro-app that should stay buildable/typecheckable/live-testable but never reach a real deployment (a demo or proof-of-concept, not a deployable) opts out via its own package.json:

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{
  "waldur": { "deploy": false }
}

The Dockerfile's apps/* loop checks this (via a one-line node -e read of the app's package.json) before building/copying it. Absent this field, an app ships by default — the flag is opt-out, not opt-in, so a real new micro-app needs no package.json change to be deployed.

Live-testing without shipping

waldur.deploy: false only controls production images. CI/preview builds override it with a second Dockerfile arg, INCLUDE_DEPLOY_FALSE_APPS=true, so every apps/* member — including opted-out ones — is still built, packaged, served, and API_URL-substituted on every MR:

Job (.gitlab-ci.yml) INCLUDE_DEPLOY_FALSE_APPS Purpose
Build test docker image (E2E image) true Image the downstream E2E suite runs against
Build test docker image (k8s preview) true Feeds Test k8s deployment's live MR preview
Publish YOLO docker image unset (false) Real develop-branch production image
Publish latest docker image unset (false) Retags YOLO → latest
Publish multiarch ... specific version unset (false) Real tagged-release production image

So apps/micro-app-poc is reachable at /micro-app-poc/ (or /<mr-id>/micro-app-poc/ under the preview env's ASSET_PATH) in every MR's live k8s preview, while never appearing in a real Publish image.

CI coverage

  • Run apps typecheck and build — yarn apps:typecheck + yarn apps:build, gated on changes under apps/**/*, packages/**/*, package.json, yarn.lock. Vite-level correctness only; doesn't touch Docker.
  • Test docker image build — MR-time smoke build (docker buildx), gated on Dockerfile, docker/**/*, apps/**/* (the Dockerfile builds apps/* into the image now, so a change there affects the built image).
  • Build test docker image + Test k8s deployment — the real end-to-end check: builds the E2E/preview images (with INCLUDE_DEPLOY_FALSE_APPS=true) and deploys the preview one to a live, browsable k8s environment at https://helm-testing.waldur.com/<mr-id>/.

Adding a new micro-app

  1. Create apps/<name>/ — package.json (with dev/build/typecheck scripts and its own vite/typescript deps), index.html (with <meta name="api-url" content="%VITE_API_URL%">, same as the root app's), vite.config.ts (own dev port — check .claude/launch.json and existing apps/* for ports already taken), tsconfig.json.
  2. Add waldur-shell as a dependency and call its bootstrapMicroApp() from your own entry point, and compose <AppShell> for the page chrome — see apps/micro-app-poc/src/main.tsx/OrgDashboardMock.tsx for the reference wiring. Skip this only if the new app genuinely needs different chrome, not just different nav content (AppShell already takes nav items/page content as props).
  3. Decide whether it ships: omit "waldur": { "deploy": false } to ship by default, or add it if it's a demo/POC that should stay CI/preview-only (see above).
  4. That's it for Dockerfile/nginx/entrypoint.sh/CI — all four scan for apps/* content, none hand-list app names.
  5. Optional, for local dev convenience: add an entry to .claude/launch.json (both the repo-root one and, if working from the waldur-claude-workspace hub, its own hub-level copy — these can drift out of sync since nothing keeps them in sync automatically) so preview_start can launch it by name.

Known gaps / follow-ups

  • .claude/launch.json isn't part of the zero-touch convention. It's a static list read by an external tool, one port per entry — a new micro-app still needs a hand-added entry there, and the hub-level and repo-level copies can drift.
  • waldur-shell only dedupes chrome composition, not packages/ui's primitives themselves. A genuinely different micro-app (a different chrome shape entirely, not just different nav items) is still real, independent evidence about those primitives' own portability — see apps/micro-app-poc/README.md's "Shared app-shell" section for what waldur-shell covers versus what stays each app's own responsibility.
  • One shared image vs. one image per micro-app. Today every micro-app is coupled to the root app's release cadence (a micro-app change forces a full homeport rebuild/redeploy). True per-micro-app deploy independence would mean separate images (still reusing the manifest-prune install trick) composed at the ingress/Helm layer instead of in this repo's nginx-tpl.conf — real infra work, only worth it once independent deploy cadence is an actual requirement.