ActualBudget on GKE Autopilot
Actual Budget is a privacy-first, local-first personal finance application built around
zero-based envelope budgeting. The actual-server component is a lightweight Node.js sync
server that stores each budget as a SQLite file and synchronises it across the web UI,
desktop, and mobile clients. This module deploys ActualBudget on GKE Autopilot as a
StatefulSet with a per-pod block PVC, on top of the App_GKE foundation,
which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure.
This guide focuses on the cloud services ActualBudget uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics that are common to every GKE application — Workload Identity, ingress, autoscaling, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_GKE foundation guide rather than repeating them here.
What ActualBudget costs on RAD, and how that compares
ActualBudget on RAD's GKE Autopilot module costs about US$42 a month in a project you own, with no licence fee for the software itself. RAD charges a one-off module fee of 75 credits (US$7.50 at the top-up price) in a project you own, and 67.5 credits (10% lower) in a project RAD manages. GKE suits ActualBudget that must stay up continuously or scale across pods; for the lowest cost, the Cloud Run module runs the same ActualBudget for about US$19 a month. Figures are as at 8 October 2026; sources are listed at the end of this section.
If you only need it occasionally — studying for a certification, a demo, a seasonal need — a RAD-managed project can be deleted and restored within 30 days for a handful of credits, so that about US$42 a month becomes close to nothing instead. See Pause it for free, below.
What you pay on RAD
You pay for three things:
| In a Google Cloud project you own | In a project RAD manages for you | |
|---|---|---|
| Module fee, once per deployment | 75 credits (US$7.50 at the top-up price) | 67.5 credits (10% lower) |
| Build time | A few credits, metered per minute of build time | The same |
| Google Cloud running cost | Billed by Google to your own billing account, about US$42 a month for the default configuration (table below) | Metered hourly in credits; RAD publishes 67 credits a day, about 2,010 a month (about US$201 at the top-up price, US$161 at the Scale plan's rate) |
| Who owns what | You own the project and its billing; RAD deploys and updates it | RAD owns the project, with guardrails, quotas and budget alerts; you get console access, and a minimum purchased balance is held in reserve |
10 credits cost US$1 on a one-off top-up, and less on a monthly plan.
Default running cost in your own project (us-central1, Google list prices):
| Resource (module default) | Per month |
|---|---|
| GKE Autopilot pod, 1x vCPU / 1 GiB | US$36.08 |
| Cloud NAT and networking | US$5 |
| Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups) | US$1 |
| GKE cluster management fee | US$0 if this is your only Autopilot/zonal cluster on the billing account, otherwise about US$73 (shared across every GKE app in the project) |
| Total | about US$42 |
How it compares
- YNAB (You Need A Budget), the best-known paid budgeting app in the same category, charges $14.99/month (or $109/year, about $9.08/month) per person — and that is a licence fee for software only, with no infrastructure of your own behind it.
- RAD runs the open-source project itself, not a vendor's hosted tenancy. You get the same software, under your own (or RAD's) infrastructure, instead of a per-seat or per-usage subscription that grows independently of what you actually use.
- Against a bare self-managed server: It is a smaller workload than a standard 2 vCPU VPS, so running it yourself on a cheaper, smaller class than a Hetzner CPX22 or DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4 GB Droplet (both about $24/month) would do, for noticeably less than that. RAD is not cheaper than that in cash terms — the difference is the managed database, Secret Manager and monitoring that come with the module instead of being your own job.
Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it
If ActualBudget runs in a project RAD manages for you, you have an option that goes well beyond scaling to zero: delete the whole project, and restore it within 30 days for close to nothing. This suits occasional use — studying for a certification, a demo, a seasonal need — far better than running ActualBudget continuously.
- How it works. Deleting a RAD-managed project unlinks its billing first, then asks Google to delete the project outright. Google does not remove it immediately: it keeps the project, recoverable, for 30 days, and because billing is already unlinked nothing is charged while it waits. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down the database, any VM or the compute resource one by one — the whole project simply stops, and nothing is billed in the meantime.
- Restoring costs a handful of credits, not a rebuild. Within 30 days, only the project's owner can restore it. RAD asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there — it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. This costs only a handful of credits in total (under US$1), against paying the module fee and a full build again.
- What this needs. You must own the project (not one RAD only manages billing for), you must restore it yourself within the 30 days — after that Google deletes it for good — and restoring is admitted like creating a new project, so your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study and demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.
- One real gap: backups do not survive. Anything ActualBudget writes to a backup bucket inside the project is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project, even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days — that bucket has Cloud Storage's soft-delete explicitly turned off. Anyone who has customised the deployment and wants to keep that work should copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before deleting. For a default install with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.
Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy
This is the fallback for a project you own, or once the 30-day restore window above has passed: delete the deployment, and deploy it again when you next need it.
- What a redeploy costs. The module fee again, plus the builds: roughly 80 credits (about US$8) in your own project, or 72.5 credits in a RAD-managed one, because RAD rebuilds the resources from scratch. Deleting saves money once ActualBudget would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own running cost — roughly 6 days or more in your own project (US$1.40/day) or 1 days or more in a RAD-managed one (67 credits/day).
- The GKE cluster itself is shared infrastructure. If another application uses the same Autopilot cluster, deleting ActualBudget alone saves only its own pod; the cluster management fee only drops once nothing else in the project needs it.
- Keep your data first. Anything ActualBudget writes to a backup bucket inside the deployment is deleted with it — copy the latest backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket you keep) before deleting if you want to keep it.
- RAD does not recreate a deleted deployment for you. You enter the settings again when you redeploy.
Lab sessions and Managed Environments
- Lab sessions, for training. A trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets ActualBudget in their own Google Cloud project for 15 minutes to 24 hours, within an allowance the trainer sets. Either the trainer funds every place, or each participant pays for their own. Everything is deleted when the session ends and unused credits go back to the trainer.
- Managed Environments, for consultancies. A partner runs ActualBudget for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.
Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud list prices from the Cloud Billing Catalog API; RAD's fees and daily-credit estimate from radmodules.dev/pricing; Delete and restore projects for the pause/restore mechanics; YNAB pricing. Prices change; check each source before relying on a figure.
1. Overview
ActualBudget runs as a single Node.js actual-server workload. Because it manages its own
SQLite storage, the deployment wires together a deliberately small set of Google Cloud
services:
| Capability | Google Cloud service | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | GKE Autopilot | actual-server pods, 1 vCPU / 1 GiB by default, single replica (min = max = 1) run as a StatefulSet |
| Database | None | Budgets are SQLite files under /data — database_type = "NONE" is fixed by ActualBudget_Common; no Cloud SQL instance is created |
| Persistent storage | Kubernetes PVC (per-pod block volume) | stateful_pvc_enabled = true by default — a 20Gi standard-rwo PVC mounted at /data (SQLite needs block storage, not GCS FUSE) |
| Object storage | Cloud Storage | A storage bucket is always declared by ActualBudget_Common; it only mounts at /data (via GCS FUSE) when the block PVC is disabled |
| Secrets | Secret Manager | Optional — a 32-character API token (enable_api_key, default false) injected as ACTUAL_TOKEN via a native Kubernetes Secret |
| Ingress | Kubernetes Service / Gateway API | Defaults to service_type = ClusterIP with enable_custom_domain = true but no domains configured — internal-only until you add a LoadBalancer or a domain |
Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:
- StatefulSet + block PVC by default.
stateful_pvc_enabled = trueauto-resolvesworkload_typetoStatefulSet(no need to set both) and mounts a 20Gistandard-rwoPVC at/datawithfsGroup = 3000, matching the ActualBudget Helm chart's convention so the container (UID 1000/GID 2000) can write to the volume. This is deliberately preferred over GCS FUSE because SQLite does not tolerate a FUSE-mounted directory well. - No database at all.
database_typeis fixed toNONEbyActualBudget_Common; there is no Cloud SQL instance, nodb-initjob, andenable_cloudsql_volumedefaultsfalse(no Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar). - Redis is hard-disabled, not just off by default. The variant's
main.tfpassesenable_redis = falseto the App_GKE foundation unconditionally — it does not forwardvar.enable_redis— so ActualBudget never receives aREDIS_HOSTon GKE regardless of how that variable is set. - Single replica by design.
min_instance_count = 1andmax_instance_count = 1— the server assumes exclusive access to its SQLite files on the shared PVC. container_portis fixed at5006byActualBudget_Commonregardless of thecontainer_portvariable's own value — that variable is inert (its description/validation text references a stale6333, a harmless copy-paste artifact from another module).- No admin/secret generation. The server password is set interactively on the first-run
onboarding screen — there is no pre-seeded credential to retrieve unless
enable_api_key = truegenerates anACTUAL_TOKEN. - Health probes target
/— HTTPGET /returns 200 as soon as the Node server is listening, no authentication required. - Out-of-the-box exposure is internal-only.
service_typedefaults toClusterIP(notLoadBalancer, unlike most GKE app modules) andenable_custom_domaindefaults totruebutapplication_domainsdefaults to[]— so a fresh deploy has no reachable external endpoint until you setservice_type = LoadBalanceror supplyapplication_domains(plus DNS).
2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them
All commands assume you have run
gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster> --region <region> --project <project>
and that PROJECT, REGION, and NAMESPACE are set. The namespace and other identifiers
are reported in the deployment Outputs.
A. GKE Autopilot — the ActualBudget StatefulSet
ActualBudget runs as a single-replica StatefulSet, which gives its pod a stable identity
(<statefulset-name>-0) and rebinds the same PVC across restarts and updates.
- Console: Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → select the ActualBudget workload for pods, revisions, and events.
- CLI:
kubectl get statefulset,pods,svc -n "$NAMESPACE"
kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" statefulset/<service-name> --tail=100
kubectl describe pod -n "$NAMESPACE" -l app=<service-name>
See App_GKE for how Autopilot, scaling, and the workload type (Deployment vs StatefulSet) are managed.
B. Persistent Volumes — the /data block PVC
With stateful_pvc_enabled = true (the default), a per-pod PersistentVolumeClaim is
provisioned and mounted at /data, where actual-server writes its budget SQLite
databases, server files, and user files. The default standard-rwo StorageClass is
SSD-backed (Balanced PD) and draws the (often tight) SSD_TOTAL_GB regional quota.
- Console: Kubernetes Engine → Storage → PersistentVolumeClaims.
- CLI:
kubectl get pvc -n "$NAMESPACE"
kubectl describe pvc -n "$NAMESPACE"
kubectl exec -n "$NAMESPACE" statefulset/<service-name> -- df -h /data
C. Cloud Storage — the storage bucket (GCS FUSE fallback)
ActualBudget_Common always declares a Cloud Storage bucket (storage), but it is only
mounted at /data via GCS FUSE when the block PVC is disabled
(stateful_pvc_enabled = false). With the default StatefulSet PVC in place, this bucket
exists but is not mounted.
- Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
- CLI:
gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~actualbudget"
See App_GKE for GCS Fuse mount behaviour and CMEK options.
D. Secret Manager — optional API token
By default no secrets are created. When enable_api_key = true, a 32-character random
token is generated, stored in Secret Manager as secret-<prefix>-<app>-api-key, and
injected into the pod as the ACTUAL_TOKEN environment variable via a native Kubernetes
Secret — useful for automations that must call the server before the UI is configured.
- Console: Security → Secret Manager.
- CLI:
gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~api-key"
gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"
See App_GKE for the Secret Store CSI integration and rotation.
E. Networking & ingress
The workload defaults to service_type = ClusterIP — no external IP is created out of the
box. enable_custom_domain = true provisions a Kubernetes Gateway API resource, but with
application_domains = [] by default there are no hostnames to route. Set
service_type = LoadBalancer for a direct external IP, or populate application_domains
(with DNS pointed at the resulting IP) for a custom-domain Gateway with a managed
certificate.
- Console: Kubernetes Engine → Services & Ingress; Network services → Load balancing.
- CLI:
kubectl get svc,gateway -n "$NAMESPACE"
gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"
See App_GKE for custom domains, Cloud CDN, and static IP details.
F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring
Pod stdout/stderr flow to Cloud Logging; GKE metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring. An optional
uptime check (uptime_check_config, disabled by default) requires a publicly reachable
endpoint, which the ClusterIP default does not provide.
- Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
- CLI:
gcloud logging read 'resource.type="k8s_container" AND resource.labels.namespace_name="'"$NAMESPACE"'"' \
--project "$PROJECT" --limit 50
3. ActualBudget Application Behaviour
- No initialization job. There is no database to bootstrap; the server creates its
SQLite files under
/dataon first boot. Custominitialization_jobsare accepted for data loading or migration tasks but none is provided by default. - First-run setup. On first access the web UI shows an onboarding screen where you set the server password — there are no pre-seeded credentials to retrieve. Do this immediately after making the service reachable; until a password is set, anyone who can reach the URL can claim the server.
- Data layout.
ACTUAL_SERVER_FILES = /data/server-files(server metadata and the account database) andACTUAL_USER_FILES = /data/user-files(per-budget sync data), both on the persistent/datamount (PVC by default). - Local-first sync model. Clients (web, desktop, mobile) keep a full local copy of the budget and use the server only to synchronise encrypted changes between devices — brief server unavailability does not block working in a client.
- Single-writer constraint, safe StatefulSet updates. The server assumes exclusive
access to its SQLite files; keep
max_instance_count = 1. Because the workload is a StatefulSet with a stable per-pod identity bound to the same PVC, the defaultRollingUpdatestrategy replaces the single pod in place rather than surging a second pod against the shared volume — unlike the Deployment+NFS combinations used by other modules in this repo, there is no double-mount deadlock risk here. - Probe precedence.
startup_probe_configandhealth_check_config(the generic top-level App_GKE probe variables) are inert for ActualBudget — the effective probe configuration always comes from ActualBudget's ownstartup_probe/liveness_probevariables (forwarded throughActualBudget_Common'sconfigoutput), both of which target unauthenticated HTTPGET /. - Version updates. Change
application_versionand re-apply — Cloud Build produces a new image and the StatefulSet rolls the new revision.latestbuilds the pinned25.7.1via the app-specificACTUALBUDGET_VERSIONbuild ARG (not the genericAPP_VERSIONthe foundation injects). - Health path. Startup probe: HTTP
GET /, 15s initial delay, 10s timeout, 10s period, 10 failures allowed. Liveness probe: HTTPGET /, 30s initial delay, 5s timeout, 30s period, 3 failures allowed. Both return 200 unauthenticated as soon as the HTTP server is listening. - Verification:
kubectl get statefulset,pods,svc -n "$NAMESPACE"
POD=$(kubectl get pods -n "$NAMESPACE" -l app=<service-name> -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')
kubectl port-forward -n "$NAMESPACE" "$POD" 5006:5006 &
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" http://localhost:5006/ # expect 200
4. Configuration Variables
Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for ActualBudget are listed; every other input is inherited from App_GKE with its standard behaviour and defaults.
Group 3 — Application Identity
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
application_name | actualbudget | Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy. |
application_version | latest | Image version tag; latest builds the pinned 25.7.1. |
enable_api_key | false | Generate a 32-char API token in Secret Manager and inject it as ACTUAL_TOKEN. Recommended for any deployment reachable outside the pod/namespace. |
Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
cpu_limit | 1000m | actual-server is a lightweight Node.js process; 1 vCPU suffices. |
memory_limit | 1Gi | Modest memory is enough for typical budget files. |
min_instance_count | 1 | Keeps the single instance warm and avoids cold starts. |
max_instance_count | 1 | Keep at 1 — one shared SQLite volume, one writer. |
container_port | 5006 | Inert — ActualBudget_Common always sets the container port to 5006. |
enable_cloudsql_volume | false | No Cloud SQL — leave false. |
enable_image_mirroring | true | Mirrors actualbudget/actual-server into Artifact Registry to avoid Docker Hub rate limits. |
Group 6 — GKE Backend & Cluster
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
service_type | LoadBalancer | Externally reachable by default, in line with every other browser-facing GKE app module. Set ClusterIP to keep it internal-only. |
workload_type | null → StatefulSet | Auto-resolves because stateful_pvc_enabled = true by default. |
session_affinity | None | No sticky routing configured (single replica makes this largely moot). |
Group 7 — StatefulSet Configuration
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
stateful_pvc_enabled | true | Enabled by default — actual-server's SQLite budget DB and user files need block storage, not GCS FUSE. |
stateful_pvc_size | 20Gi | Per-pod PVC size; size for the budget databases and files plus overhead. |
stateful_pvc_mount_path | /data | Where actual-server persists its SQLite DB, server files, and user files. |
stateful_pvc_storage_class | standard-rwo | SSD-backed Balanced PD; draws the SSD_TOTAL_GB quota — override to standard (HDD) if that quota is tight. |
stateful_fs_group | 3000 | Matches the ActualBudget Helm chart's fsGroup convention so the container (UID 1000/GID 2000) can write to the PVC. |
Group 9 — Reliability Policies
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_pod_disruption_budget | true | On by default (unlike most modules) — protects the single StatefulSet replica during voluntary node disruption. |
pdb_min_available | 1 | Minimum pods available during voluntary disruptions. |
Group 10 — Observability & Health
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
startup_probe | HTTP /, 15s initial delay, 10 failures | The effective startup probe (see §3 "Probe precedence"). |
liveness_probe | HTTP /, 30s initial delay, 3 failures | The effective liveness probe. |
startup_probe_config / health_check_config | HTTP / | Declared for foundation-variable mirroring but inert for ActualBudget — use startup_probe / liveness_probe above instead. |
uptime_check_config | disabled | Enable only once the endpoint is publicly reachable (LoadBalancer or a custom domain). |
Group 14 — Cloud Storage & Artifact Registry
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
create_cloud_storage | true | Always creates the storage bucket ActualBudget_Common declares. |
gcs_volumes | [] | Additional GCS FUSE mounts; the storage bucket only auto-mounts at /data when stateful_pvc_enabled = false. |
Group 15 — Redis Cache
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_redis | true (variable default) | Has no effect — main.tf hardcodes enable_redis = false to the foundation regardless of this variable's value. |
redis_host / redis_port / redis_auth | inert | Not applicable — ActualBudget has no Redis integration on GKE. |
Group 16 — Database Backend
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
database_type | NONE (fixed) | ActualBudget_Common fixes this to NONE; no Cloud SQL instance is created regardless of this variable. |
application_database_name / application_database_user | actualbudgetdb / actualbudgetuser | Forwarded for foundation compatibility only — not referenced (no database exists). |
Group 19 — Custom Domain, Static IP & Networking
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
enable_custom_domain | true | On by default, but with application_domains = [] the Gateway has no hostnames to route until you supply one. |
application_domains | [] | Populate to expose ActualBudget via a custom domain + managed certificate. |
reserve_static_ip | true | Reserves a static IP even though service_type defaults to ClusterIP (no LoadBalancer IP is allocated by default). |
All other inputs follow standard App_GKE behaviour.
5. Outputs
These values are returned on a successful deployment and are the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.
| Output | Description |
|---|---|
service_name | Kubernetes Service name. |
namespace | Namespace the workload runs in. |
service_cluster_ip | In-cluster ClusterIP. |
stage_service_cluster_ips | Map of ClusterIPs for stage-specific services. |
service_external_ip | External LoadBalancer IP (when service_type = LoadBalancer and a static IP is reserved). |
service_url | URL to reach ActualBudget. |
actualbudget_api_key_secret_id | Secret Manager secret ID for the API key. Empty when enable_api_key = false. |
statefulset_name | Name of the StatefulSet. |
storage_buckets | Created Cloud Storage buckets (includes the storage bucket). |
network_name / network_exists / regions | VPC network, presence, available regions. |
container_image / container_registry | Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo. |
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels | Monitoring status and channels. |
initialization_jobs | Names of any custom setup jobs (empty by default). |
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix | Naming identifiers. |
project_id / project_number | Project identifiers. |
cicd_enabled / cicd_configuration | CI/CD status and details (repo, trigger, registry). |
github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name | CI/CD GitHub details. |
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id | Registry and build trigger. |
kubernetes_ready | Whether the cluster/workload is ready. |
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode | VPC-SC status. |
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled | Audit logging and CMEK status. |
6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults
Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).
Inherited plan-time validation. This module passes its configuration through the App_GKE foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time — a
StatefulSetforced alongside a stateless setting, IAP with no authorized identities,quota_memory_*given as bare integers, an out-of-rangecontainer_port/backup_retention_days. Invalid configuration fails the plan with a clear, named error before any resource is created, so most mistakes below are caught up front rather than at apply or runtime.
| Setting | Sensible value | Risk | Consequence if wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
max_instance_count | 1 | Critical | Multiple pods writing the same SQLite files on one shared volume risks corruption/write conflicts. |
| First-run server password | set immediately | Critical | Until a password is set, anyone who can reach the service can claim the server and its budget data. |
/data PVC contents | never delete manually | Critical | The block PVC is the only copy of the budget databases; deleting it erases all budgets. |
stateful_pvc_enabled | true | Critical | Disabling it falls back to GCS FUSE at /data, which does not tolerate SQLite under heavy concurrent write. |
quota_memory_requests / _limits | binary units (4Gi, 8192Mi) | Critical | Bare integers are treated as bytes and block all pod scheduling. |
service_type / application_domains | set one to expose externally | High | With the defaults (ClusterIP + no domains), the service is reachable only from inside the cluster. |
stateful_pvc_storage_class | standard-rwo (SSD) | Medium | Draws the tight SSD_TOTAL_GB quota; override to standard (HDD) on a quota-constrained project — SQLite does not need SSD IOPS. |
enable_redis | any value — inert | Low | Attempting to enable Redis via this variable has no effect on GKE; main.tf always forces it off. |
container_port | 5006 (fixed) | Low | The variable is inert; its own description/validation text references a stale, unrelated port number. |
startup_probe_config / health_check_config | any value — inert | Low | Use startup_probe / liveness_probe instead to change probe timing; these two are ignored for ActualBudget. |
enable_api_key | true for automation on a reachable endpoint | Medium | Without ACTUAL_TOKEN, programmatic API access relies solely on the server password. |
backup_retention_days | 7 (raise for prod) | Medium | Too short for compliance retention. |
For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — IAM and Workload Identity, autoscaling, ingress and certificates, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_GKE. ActualBudget-specific application configuration shared with the Cloud Run variant is described in ActualBudget_Common.
Related guides
- Hands-on lab: ActualBudget on GKE Autopilot — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
- ActualBudget on Google Cloud Run — the same application on Cloud Run, for when you need the other deployment target.
- ActualBudget Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
Need RAD to do something it does not do yet? Request it on the roadmap, or vote on what is already there.