[Ideas] NodeJS on Appengine - Local Development Approach in 2021

[Kaan Soral]

Hi everyone,

Old timers might remember me, I've been using App Engine since inception, started with Python and continued with Python, originally, App Engine always provided a fully functioning replica of all services for local development, nowadays nothing is available for local testing

I wonder if anyone is developing a multi-functional NodeJS app that uses Tasks, Databases, Storage etc. and how you are approaching local development (These are the initial services that come to mind, but there are soo many more now)

Back when I last tested ( https://groups.google.com/g/google-appengine/c/EzAptrVl4SU/m/xfLqEcG9AwAJ ) - It seemed like the best option was to just deploy and test everything live, but this is obviously soo slow and so unwelcoming

I guess a logical idea is to mimic what can be mimicked, and use live versions of other services? Example:

Local App

1. Live Firebase: local_app
2. Live Storage: local_storage
3. Mock Up Tasks -> Just uses setTimeout

Live App

1. Live Firebase: live_app
2. Live Storage: live_storage
3. Cloud Tasks

Obviously this is an over simplification, as far as I see, if you rewrite/reroute urls etc. - It would be challenging to keep things in sync, the app would need to stay simple

I'm just wondering if anyone else has solved this problem or have their own approaches and thoughts - and maybe challenges they've overcomed (I mean, even the environment variable approach to settings is a challenge these days)

[Elliott (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hello,

Doing a search, I was able to find a course online here about testing GCP locally. This would be a good start.