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Deploy Flask with LaunchFlow


Deploy a Flask application to AWS Fargate with LaunchFlow.

View the source code for this guide in our examples repo.

0. Set up your Flask Project

If you already have a Flask Project you can skip to step #1.


Initialize a new directory for your project

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mkdir launchflow-flask
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cd launchflow-flask

Create a main.py:

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from flask import Flask, request
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import launchflow as lf
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app = Flask(__name__)
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@app.route("/", methods=["GET"])
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def index():
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return f"Hello from {lf.project}/{lf.environment}"

Create a Dockerfile next to main.py:

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FROM public.ecr.aws/docker/library/python:3.11-slim
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WORKDIR /code
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RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends gcc libpq-dev && apt-get clean && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
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RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -U pip setuptools wheel && pip install --no-cache-dir launchflow[aws] flask gunicorn
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COPY ./main.py /code/main.py
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COPY ./infra.py /code/infra.py
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ENV PORT=80
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EXPOSE $PORT
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CMD gunicorn main:app -b 0.0.0.0:$PORT

1. Initialize Launch Flow

Install the LaunchFlow Python SDK and CLI using pip.

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pip install launchflow[aws]

Initialize LaunchFlow in your project

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lf init --backend=local
  • Name your project
  • Select Yes for creating an example infra.py
  • Select AWS for your cloud provider
  • Select ECS Fargate for your service

Once finished you will get an infra.py that looks like:

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import launchflow as lf
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# ECSFargateService Docs: https://docs.launchflow.com/reference/aws-services/ecs-fargate
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api = lf.aws.ECSFargateService(
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"my-ecs-api",
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dockerfile="Dockerfile", # Path to your Dockerfile
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)

ECSFargateService will build your Dockerfile and deploy to ECS Fargate. You can provide additional fields to ECSFargateService to configure things like machine type, num instances, or even a custom domain.


2. Deploy your Service

Make sure you have local AWS credentials set up before deploying.

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lf deploy
  • Name your environment (dev is a good first name)
  • Select your cloud provider AWS
  • Confirm the resources to be created
  • Select the service to deploy

Once complete you will see a link to your deployed service on ECS Fargate.

Deploy ECS Fargate

3. Cleanup your Resources

Optionally you can delete all your resources, service, and environments with:

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lf destroy
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lf environments delete

4. Visualize, Share, and Automate

LaunchFlow Cloud Console

LaunchFlow Cloud usage is optional and free for individuals.

Using the local backend like we did above works fine for starting a project, but doesn't offer a way to share state between multiple users. LaunchFlow Cloud is a web-based service for managing, sharing, and automating your infrastructure. It's free small teams and provides a simple, secure way to collaborate with your team and automate your release pipelines.

Sign up for LaunchFlow Cloud and connect your local environment by running:

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lf init --backend=lf

This will create a project in your LaunchFlow Cloud account and migrate your local state to the LaunchFlow Cloud backend.


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