How to install Docassemble on Cloudron as a custom application

[timconsidine]

@LoudLemur said:

On Cloudron the container filesystem is read-only, so we have to copy that venv to the writable /app/data/ partition on first boot.

Understood but it seems a strange way to do it.
My instinct would be to get setup.sh to create the needed venv on first run, not pre-create and copy.
That way, it would survive upgrades.

Maybe there is a technical reason for your approach.

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EDIT : My AI friend says my instinct is wrong

[timconsidine]

@loudlemur if you conquered the mammoth build process, it would be easy to make it a community app for people to try out easier ?

[timconsidine]

@loudlemur do I understand correctly that you are not using the Cloudron base image ?
I think this would disqualify it from getting into the AppStore.
But maybe that's not your ambition.

[LoudLemur]

@timconsidine Yes, I hope it becomes a community application, but I need to turn my attention elsewhere at the moment. Could you put it on your app, tim?

[LoudLemur]

@timconsidine No, we did not use the Cloudron base image. We built directly FROM jhpyle/docassemble:latest. The reason is pragmatic: docassemble's upstream image contains hundreds of carefully configured components (texlive, pandoc, imagemagick, LibreOffice, a full Python environment with ~200 packages, supervisord configs, nginx templates, dozens of shell scripts). Rebuilding all of that on top of cloudron/base would have been a multi-week project and a permanent maintenance burden, because every upstream docassemble release could change dependencies, scripts, or paths.
By building on top of the upstream image, we inherit all of that and only add our adaptation layer (LavinMQ swap, symlinks, start.sh, supervisor overrides). When docassemble releases a new version, updating is just a rebuild that pulls the new upstream image.

The tradeoff is that we lose some Cloudron-native tooling that the base image provides (like gosu and some helper scripts), and our image is larger than it would be with a clean build. For an official Cloudron package, rebuilding on cloudron/base would be the right approach, but for a community custom app, tracking upstream is far more sustainable.

(ATTENTION DOCASSEMBLE DEVELOPERS)

The strongest path would be a hybrid approach, similar to how the Baserow Cloudron package evolved. There are two realistic strategies, and they have different tradeoffs.
Strategy 1: Upstream-first (recommended)
Work with Jonathan Pyle (docassemble maintainer) to improve the upstream Docker image's support for constrained environments. The specific changes that would make official Cloudron packaging dramatically easier:
First, extend DAREADONLYFILESYSTEM to cover all write paths, not just the 25 it currently gates. If the upstream image could run cleanly with that flag set to true and all state under a single configurable data directory, the Cloudron package would be straightforward.
Second, make initialize.sh respect CONTAINERROLE fully. If sql is not in the role, the script should never touch PostgreSQL, not even to check if it is running. Same for Redis and RabbitMQ.
Third, support a DA_DATA_DIR environment variable that relocates all writable state to a single directory. Docassemble already partially supports this with DA_ROOT, but many paths are hardcoded outside of it (/var/www/.certs, /etc/ssl/docassemble, /var/lib/nginx, etc).
If those three changes landed upstream, an official Cloudron package could be built on cloudron/base:5.0 with a clean Dockerfile that installs docassemble from pip into a venv, uses Cloudron addons for PostgreSQL and Redis, and needs very few symlink hacks.
Strategy 2: Clean-room rebuild on cloudron/base (harder, more maintainable long-term)
Build from cloudron/base:5.0 and install docassemble's Python packages directly, bypassing the upstream Docker image entirely. This is how most official Cloudron packages work. The Dockerfile would install the system dependencies (texlive, pandoc, imagemagick, poppler, LibreOffice), create a Python venv, pip install the three docassemble packages (docassemble.base, docassemble.webapp, docassemble.demo), and configure nginx, supervisord, and LavinMQ from scratch.
The advantage is a smaller, cleaner image that follows Cloudron conventions properly. The disadvantage is substantial: docassemble has over 100 system dependencies and the upstream initialize.sh contains years of accumulated logic for database migrations, package management, certificate handling, and configuration templating. Replicating all of that correctly would take weeks, and every upstream release could break it.
What I would actually recommend to someone volunteering for this:
Start from our working v0.1 package and incrementally replace the upstream image. The sequence would be:

Fork our repo and get it running on your own Cloudron. Confirm everything works.
Open a conversation with the docassemble maintainer (the GitHub issue we just filed is a good starting point). Propose the DA_DATA_DIR and DAREADONLYFILESYSTEM improvements. Jonathan Pyle has been maintaining this project for years and is responsive.
While waiting for upstream changes, extract the initialize.sh logic you actually need. Most of it (S3 support, Azure blob storage, multi-server clustering, Let's Encrypt, internal PostgreSQL/Redis management) is irrelevant on Cloudron. A stripped-down init script that only handles database migration, package table population, nginx config generation, and service startup would be perhaps 200 lines instead of 1800.
Once you have a minimal init script, rebuild on cloudron/base:5.0. Install system dependencies from a known-good list (extractable from the upstream Dockerfile), pip install the docassemble packages, and use your minimal init script instead of the upstream one.
Add LDAP or OIDC integration for Cloudron single sign-on. Docassemble supports LDAP. This is expected for official Cloudron apps.
Submit to the Cloudron app store via cloudron versions init and the publication workflow.

[LoudLemur]

Great news! Jonathan Pyle likes this effort and he is going to take a look. He suggested this:

"If your platform supports Docker Compose, you might want to look at https://github.com/jhpyle/docassemble-compose, which shows how you can cut out the jhpyle/docassemble image, supervisord, and any service you are hosting externally."

[timconsidine]

@LoudLemur .... but Cloudron does NOT support Docker Compose, so ...

[timconsidine]

@loudlemur

for a community custom app ...

You raise an interesting point. Just because it is a community app does not mean it can be any base image. Community apps should be compliant to Cloudron standards. IMHO. If not, you might as well set up a separate VPS and deploy via docker compose, why have the hassle of cloudron compliance.
I do see the other view point, I just don't agree with it.

Rebuilding all of that on top of cloudron/base would have been a multi-week project

I started from scratch using a cloudron base image, none of your code, different direction, at 17:16, took 2 hours out for supper & TV, then returned to the app. 1st working version at 21:08. So roughly 2 hours.

I'm not saying that the app is fully built. But to get a Home Screen loaded is significant. I don't know the app, so not sure what to do next. That might take another couple hours.

Not seeking an argument, I just don't agree that your approach to build from upstream image is correct.

[LoudLemur]

@timconsidine That is fantastic, Tim!
I was just trying a version 2 using the Docker Compose approach, but if you have managed to do it on the Cloudron base, that would be much better.

[timconsidine]

See https://forum.cloudron.io/post/121990