Docuseal on GKE Autopilot

DocuSeal is an open-source document-signing platform — a self-hosted DocuSign alternative for creating, filling, and signing PDF documents with a visual form builder, reusable templates, and audit trails. This module deploys DocuSeal on GKE Autopilot 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 DocuSeal 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.

---

1. Overview

DocuSeal runs as a single Ruby on Rails (Puma) web workload. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	GKE Autopilot	Rails/Puma pods on port 3000, 2 vCPU / 4 GiB by default
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — DocuSeal does not support MySQL or other engines
Persistent documents	Filestore / NFS or block PVC	Uploaded documents live at /data/docuseal
Object storage	Cloud Storage	One bucket provisioned automatically (not the default document store)
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated SECRET_KEY_BASE; database password
Ingress	Cloud Load Balancing	External LoadBalancer, optional custom domain + managed certificate

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is mandatory. The database engine is fixed by the shared application layer; selecting any other engine breaks startup.
• container_port = 3000 and the probes must match it. On GKE the PORT env is not injected (unlike Cloud Run), so Puma uses its config default of 3000. If container_port or the probes point anywhere else, they hit a dead port and the pod never becomes Ready even though the app is healthy.
• The Auth Proxy sidecar is used on GKE. enable_cloudsql_volume = true runs the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar, so DocuSeal reaches PostgreSQL over 127.0.0.1 (plain TCP, TLS terminated by the proxy) — the entrypoint takes the loopback branch.
• SECRET_KEY_BASE is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager. It must never be rotated after first boot — doing so invalidates all signed session cookies, logging every user out.
• Uploaded documents need a persistent volume. By default enable_nfs = true mounts the shared NFS volume at /data/docuseal; alternatively set stateful_pvc_enabled = true (auto-selects a StatefulSet) with stateful_pvc_mount_path = /data/docuseal for a per-pod block PVC.
• Minimum 1 replica (GKE does not support scale-to-zero); session_affinity defaults to ClientIP and a static IP is reserved so the LoadBalancer address survives redeploys.
• No Redis. DocuSeal uses a PostgreSQL-backed queue/cache (enable_redis = false).
• Migrations run on boot. DocuSeal applies its own ActiveRecord migrations on every start; the only init job creates the PostgreSQL role and database.

---

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 DocuSeal workload

DocuSeal pods are scheduled on Autopilot, which bills for the CPU/memory the pods request. Horizontal Pod Autoscaling sizes the deployment between the minimum and maximum replica counts. When a block PVC is enabled, the workload becomes a StatefulSet.

• Console: Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → select the DocuSeal workload for pods, revisions, and events. Kubernetes Engine → Services & Ingress shows the external IP.
• CLI:

  kubectl get pods,svc,hpa -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> --tail=100
  kubectl describe hpa -n "$NAMESPACE"           # current vs target utilisation

See App_GKE for how Autopilot, scaling, and the workload type (Deployment vs StatefulSet) are managed.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

DocuSeal stores all application data (templates, submissions, submitters, users, audit trail) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. Pods reach it privately through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar over 127.0.0.1; no public IP is exposed. On first deploy an initialization Job creates the application database and role.

• Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  # Open an interactive shell to inspect schema/data:
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=docuseal --database=docuseal --project "$PROJECT"

The instance name, database name, user, and the Secret Manager secret holding the password are all surfaced in the Outputs. For the connection model, automated backups, and password rotation, see App_GKE.

C. Persistent documents — NFS or block PVC

DocuSeal writes uploaded documents and attachments to /data/docuseal. By default this is backed by the shared NFS volume (enable_nfs = true); alternatively a per-pod block PVC (stateful_pvc_enabled = true, 10 GiB by default) mounted at the same path backs it in a StatefulSet.

• Console: Filestore → Instances (NFS); Kubernetes Engine → Storage (PVCs).
• CLI:

  kubectl get pvc -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl exec -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> -- ls -la /data/docuseal

See App_GKE for the NFS discovery model and StatefulSet PVC templates.

D. Cloud Storage

One Cloud Storage bucket (name suffix storage) is provisioned automatically and the workload service account is granted access. DocuSeal's document store defaults to the persistent volume above, so this bucket is available for auxiliary use rather than the primary document store.

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

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

See App_GKE for CMEK options and GCS Fuse mounts.

E. Secret Manager

One cryptographic secret is generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager: SECRET_KEY_BASE (used by Rails to sign session cookies and other signed values). The database password is managed separately by the foundation.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~docuseal"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"

The database password secret name is in the Outputs. See App_GKE for the Secret Store CSI integration and rotation.

F. Networking & ingress

By default the workload is exposed through an external Cloud Load Balancing IP (service_type = LoadBalancer) with a reserved static IP so the address survives redeploys. A custom domain with a Google-managed certificate can be enabled.

• Console: Network services → Load balancing; VPC network → IP addresses.
• CLI:

  kubectl get ingress,svc -n "$NAMESPACE"
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_GKE for custom domains, Cloud CDN, and static IP details.

G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Pod stdout/stderr (Rails logs to stdout) flow to Cloud Logging; GKE and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring. Optional uptime checks and alert policies are available.

• 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. Docuseal Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs db-init.sh using postgres:15-alpine. It connects through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy and idempotently creates the docuseal role and database, grants full privileges, reassigns ownership of the public schema to the app role (PostgreSQL 15 no longer grants CREATE on public by default), and signals the proxy sidecar to shut down so the Job pod completes. The job is safe to re-run.
• Migrations on start. DocuSeal runs its own ActiveRecord migrations automatically on every boot as the application role, so upgrading the application version applies schema changes without a separate migration step.
• SECRET_KEY_BASE is immutable after first boot. It is generated once and written to Secret Manager. Rotating it invalidates all signed session cookies, forcing every user to log in again. Only rotate during a planned maintenance window.
• Health path. Startup, liveness, and readiness probes target /up — Rails' built-in health endpoint, which returns an unauthenticated 200 once the app is up. The probes run on port 3000; because GKE does not inject PORT, container_port and the probe port must both be 3000.
• First-run setup. DocuSeal has no default credentials. After the LoadBalancer IP is assigned, open the service URL and complete the setup screen to create the initial administrator account (email + password) before inviting users or creating templates.
• Persistent documents. Uploaded documents live at /data/docuseal on the NFS volume (or the block PVC). Inspect the mount from a pod:

  kubectl exec -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> -- df -h /data/docuseal

• Inspect job execution:

  kubectl get jobs -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" job/<job-name>

---

4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for DocuSeal are listed; every other input is inherited from App_GKE with its standard behaviour and defaults.

Group 1 — Project & Identity

Variable	Default	Description
project_id	(required)	Target Google Cloud project.
region	us-central1	Region for the workload and regional resources.

Group 2 — Deployment Environment

Variable	Default	Description
tenant_deployment_id	demo	Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment.
support_users	[]	Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts.
resource_labels	{}	Labels applied to all resources.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	docuseal	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
application_version	latest	DocuSeal image tag (FROM docuseal/docuseal:<tag>); pin to a specific release in production.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
container_resources	{ cpu_limit = "2000m", memory_limit = "4Gi" }	CPU/memory limits and requests for the DocuSeal container.
min_instance_count	1	Minimum replicas; GKE requires ≥ 1.
max_instance_count	5	Maximum replicas.
container_port	3000	Puma listens on 3000; probes must match. Do not change.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the DocuSeal image into Artifact Registry.
container_image_source	custom	Thin wrapper built from docuseal/docuseal.

Group 5 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Extra non-secret settings. Core values (RAILS_LOG_TO_STDOUT, WORKDIR) are set automatically.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name. SECRET_KEY_BASE is injected automatically.

Group 6 — GKE Backend & Cluster

Variable	Default	Description
service_type	LoadBalancer	How the Kubernetes Service is exposed.
workload_type	null	Auto-selects Deployment; becomes StatefulSet when stateful_pvc_enabled = true.
session_affinity	ClientIP	Sticky routing for UI sessions.
reserve_static_ip	true	Stable external IP across redeploys.
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Fixed PostgreSQL 15 engine.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Auth Proxy sidecar → loopback TCP. Keep on.

Group 7 — StatefulSet

Variable	Default	Description
stateful_pvc_enabled	null	Set true for a per-pod block PVC (auto-selects StatefulSet) as an alternative to NFS.
stateful_pvc_mount_path	/data/docuseal	PVC mount path — must match DocuSeal's WORKDIR.
stateful_pvc_size	10Gi	Per-pod PVC storage size.
stateful_fs_group	0	fsGroup applied to the PVC volume.

Group 10 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /up, 60s delay, 10s timeout, 15s period, 30 retries	Startup probe against the Rails health endpoint.
liveness_probe	HTTP /up, 60s delay, 5s timeout, 30s period, 3 retries	Liveness probe.
uptime_check_config	{ enabled=false, path="/" }	Optional Cloud Monitoring uptime check; disabled by default.

Group 11 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job (creates role + database).

Group 13 — Filesystem (NFS)

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	Mount the shared NFS volume at /data/docuseal for persistent documents (the default persistence model).
nfs_mount_path	/data/docuseal	Mount path — must match DocuSeal's WORKDIR.

Group 15 — Redis Cache & Queue

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	DocuSeal uses a PostgreSQL-backed queue/cache; leave off.

Group 16 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
application_database_name	docuseal	PostgreSQL database name. Immutable after first deploy.
application_database_user	docuseal	Application database user. Immutable after first deploy.

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 a static IP is reserved).
service_url	URL to reach DocuSeal.
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name	Application database name.
database_user	Application database user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint (127.0.0.1 via the Auth Proxy) / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets.
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 / db_import_job	Names of the setup and (optional) import jobs.
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 Deployment workload_type alongside stateful_pvc_enabled = true, non-binary quota_memory_* units, IAP with no authorized identities, a database_type that does not match an enabled extension. 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
SECRET_KEY_BASE (auto-generated)	Never rotate after first boot	Critical	Rotating invalidates all signed session cookies — every user is logged out.
enable_nfs / stateful_pvc_enabled	Exactly one enabled	Critical	With neither, documents write to the ephemeral pod disk and are lost on restart/reschedule.
nfs_mount_path / stateful_pvc_mount_path	/data/docuseal	Critical	Must match DocuSeal's WORKDIR; a mismatched path means documents write to non-persistent storage.
application_database_name / application_database_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
container_port	3000	High	GKE does not inject PORT; a mismatched port makes probes hit a dead port and the pod never becomes Ready.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	High	The Auth Proxy sidecar provides the loopback path the entrypoint expects; disabling it breaks DB connectivity on GKE.
workload_type	null / StatefulSet	High	Forcing Deployment with stateful_pvc_enabled = true fails at plan time.
session_affinity	ClientIP	Medium	Without stickiness, multi-step signing sessions may route to different pods.
quota_memory_requests / _limits	binary units (4Gi, 8192Mi)	Critical	Bare integers are treated as bytes and block all pod scheduling in the namespace.
memory_limit	4Gi	Medium	PDF rendering/signing is memory-hungry; shrinking too far risks OOM under load.
application_version	Pin in production	Medium	latest can pull a new major on redeploy, applying migrations you did not review.

---

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. DocuSeal-specific application configuration shared with the Cloud Run variant is described in Docuseal_Common.