Audiobookshelf Common — Shared Application Configuration

Audiobookshelf_Common is the shared application layer for Audiobookshelf. It is not deployed on its own; instead it supplies the Audiobookshelf-specific configuration that both Audiobookshelf_GKE and Audiobookshelf_CloudRun build on, so the two platform variants behave identically where it matters. End users never configure this layer directly — it has no deployment UI inputs of its own — but understanding what it provides explains the defaults you see in the platform docs.

For the infrastructure that actually provisions and runs Audiobookshelf, see the platform guides (Audiobookshelf_GKE, Audiobookshelf_CloudRun) and the foundation guides (App_GKE, App_CloudRun, App_Common).

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1. What this layer provides

Area	Provided by Audiobookshelf_Common	Where it surfaces
Container image	Wraps the official ghcr.io/advplyr/audiobookshelf image with a thin Dockerfile and builds/mirrors it into Artifact Registry via Cloud Build (Kaniko)	container_image output of the platform deployment
Database engine	None — Audiobookshelf embeds its own SQLite database under CONFIG_PATH; no Cloud SQL, no init job, no migrations job	database_type = "NONE" in the config
Persistent storage	Declares a single Cloud Storage data bucket and mounts it at /data (covering both CONFIG_PATH and METADATA_PATH)	storage_buckets output
Core settings	Sets the baseline environment: PORT, CONFIG_PATH, METADATA_PATH, container port 80	Application behaviour in the platform guides
Health checks	Supplies the default startup/liveness probe targeting /healthcheck	§Observability in the platform guides
Secrets	None — the first admin ("root") user is created interactively in the first-run web UI; secret_ids and secret_values are empty	—

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2. No service secrets

Unlike database-backed apps, Audiobookshelf has no env-based admin or API bootstrap. There are no cryptographic keys, no JWT secret, and no database password to generate:

• The initial root user is created interactively on first access to / in the web UI.
• API tokens are minted in the web UI afterwards (Settings → Users), not injected at deploy time.

Accordingly, Audiobookshelf_Common exposes empty secret_ids and secret_values outputs. Both variant wrappers still wire these uniformly (through module_secret_env_vars / explicit_secret_values) so the foundation call is identical across platforms — there is simply nothing to inject.

There are therefore no application secrets to retrieve from Secret Manager for this module. (The foundation may still create platform-level secrets unrelated to the application; see App_Common.)

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3. No database, no init job

Audiobookshelf stores all of its application state in a self-managed SQLite database that it creates and migrates itself on first boot. Consequently:

• database_type = "NONE", db_name = "", db_user = "", and enable_cloudsql_volume = false — no Cloud SQL instance, Auth Proxy, or database user is provisioned.
• No db-init job is injected. Audiobookshelf self-creates its schema on first start, so initialization_jobs defaults to an empty list. Custom jobs can still be supplied (for one-off data loads or migrations), but none are required.
• No Redis. Audiobookshelf is a single-writer application; enable_redis is forced to false in both variant wrappers.

Because the SQLite file lives under the persistent /data mount (see below), the database survives revision/pod restarts and application-version upgrades.

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4. Persistent storage — a single /data mount

Audiobookshelf keeps its SQLite config database under CONFIG_PATH and its cover art / cached metadata under METADATA_PATH. Both are redirected under one persistent mount so a single volume covers config + metadata:

• CONFIG_PATH = /data/config — the SQLite database and application config.
• METADATA_PATH = /data/metadata — cover art and cached metadata.

Audiobookshelf_Common declares one Cloud Storage data bucket (name_suffix = "storage") and, when enable_gcs_storage_volume = true, mounts it at /data. The two variants realise this mount differently:

• Cloud Run mounts the bucket as a GCS FUSE volume at /data (requires the gen2 execution environment).
• GKE mounts a block Persistent Volume Claim at /data via a StatefulSet. gcsfuse corrupts SQLite and the media file index, so a real block PVC is required; in that case the wrapper sets enable_gcs_storage_volume = false to avoid a double-mount at the same path.

An additional media library (audiobooks / podcasts) can be attached through gcs_volumes (for example a read-only bucket mounted at /audiobooks), which is concatenated alongside the storage volume.

List the data bucket after deployment:

gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
gcloud storage ls gs://<data-bucket>/          # bucket name is in the platform Outputs

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5. Container image and version pinning

The image is a thin wrapper built FROM ghcr.io/advplyr/audiobookshelf so the foundation can mirror it into Artifact Registry:

• The build runs through Cloud Build with Kaniko and honours the app-specific build ARG AUDIOBOOKSHELF_VERSION — deliberately not the generic APP_VERSION the foundation injects (which it would force to latest). When application_version = "latest", the ARG resolves to the pinned default 2.17.0; otherwise it uses the requested tag.
• enable_image_mirroring = true by default, so the image is pulled once into the tenant's Artifact Registry and served from there.

Inspect the built image and registry from the platform deployment outputs (container_image, container_registry) or:

gcloud artifacts docker images list \
  <region>-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT/<repo>/audiobookshelf --project "$PROJECT"

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6. Core application settings

Audiobookshelf_Common establishes the baseline environment so the application comes up correctly on first boot:

• Port — PORT = "80"; the container listens on port 80 (Audiobookshelf's default HTTP port).
• Config path — CONFIG_PATH = "/data/config".
• Metadata path — METADATA_PATH = "/data/metadata".

These defaults can be overridden via environment_variables when the same key is supplied, but changing CONFIG_PATH/METADATA_PATH after first boot would orphan the existing SQLite database and cached metadata.

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7. Health probe behaviour

The default startup and liveness probes target /healthcheck — Audiobookshelf's unauthenticated endpoint that returns 200 once the server is ready. Because the probe path is public, it succeeds as soon as the HTTP server binds and does not require authentication.

• Startup probe — HTTP /healthcheck, 15-second initial delay, 10-second period, 10 failures allowed (≈115 seconds of first-boot grace).
• Liveness probe — HTTP /healthcheck, 30-second initial delay, 30-second period, 3 failures allowed.

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For the Audiobookshelf-specific, user-facing configuration (variables by group, outputs, and how to explore each service from the Console and CLI), see the platform guides: Audiobookshelf_GKE and Audiobookshelf_CloudRun.