Externalizing configuration and managing secrets

A common aspect of building cloud-native applications is externalizing application configuration. This decouples services from their execution environment, making them more portable across platforms and lifecycles. Additionally, there is a security need to externalize application secrets such as API keys and passwords, as storing these values in unsecured plain text represents a significant vulnerability.

Google Cloud offers a wide variety of tools and services for managing application configuration. Some of these tools are specific to App Engine, while others are more broadly available to the platform as a whole. The flexibility, complexity, and overall security of each approach varies. Developers will need to determine which solution is best for their specific needs.

Application configuration files

On Google App Engine, the primary method of externalizing application configuration is through the use of the app.yaml configuration file. In addition...