Deploy a PCF NodeJS app as a scheduled task

I have a NodeJS app that runs as a process and that executes a task every 15 minutes using node-schedule.

We first need a manifest.yml file that contains:

---
applications:
- name: APP-NAME
  buildpack: nodejs_buildpack
  no-route: true
  health-check-type: process
  env:
    OPTIMIZE_MEMORY: true

The no-route parameter is true so that we don’t get a route assigned, and the health-check-type is set to process so that the orchestrator monitors process availability and doesn’t try to ping a non-existent web endpoint. And OPTIMIZE_MEMORY in “env” section is based on the Pivotal recommendations.

If you need to use a local package in your app, you’ll have to pack it up first. To do it, go to your local module folder, and type npm pack. It will create a .tgz file that you’ll have to store in a local_modules folder for your app. Next, use npm install .\local_modules\package-1.2.3.tgz.

You can now deploy your app with pcf push APP-NAME and you can read the logs with cf logs APP-NAME --recent.

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