Homebox on Google Cloud Run

Homebox is an open-source, self-hosted home inventory and organization system with a Go REST API backend (Echo-style, Ent ORM) and a Vue 3/Nuxt frontend served embedded from the same binary — track items, attach photos, and organize by location. This module deploys Homebox on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Homebox uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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What Homebox costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Homebox on Cloud Run in your own Google Cloud project costs about $67.80/month in Google Cloud charges, on top of a one-off 40-credit RAD module fee charged once at deploy time. Homebox is a small home-inventory app with a modest Postgres database behind it — there is no commercial hosted SaaS for this exact open-source project to name. In a RAD-managed project the module fee drops to 36 credits (10% lower) and the running cost is metered hourly in credits instead of billed directly by Google — see Pause it for free below for the one RAD-managed advantage a self-hosted VPS cannot match — or see the GKE guide if you'd rather run it on Kubernetes.

What you pay on RAD

	Own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee (one-off)	40 credits	36 credits (10% lower)
Build time	~3-6 credits per build, either way	~3-6 credits per build, either way
Google Cloud running cost	$67.80/month, billed by Google at list price	~26 credits/day, metered at list price plus RAD's margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 0.5 GiB (scaleToZero)	$10.78
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	$51.02
Cloud NAT and networking	$5.00
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	$1.00
Total	$67.80

How it compares

• A self-managed comparison: Hetzner CPX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) runs about $24/mo, a DigitalOcean 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet is the same $24/mo, and a GCP Compute Engine e2-standard-2 (2 vCPU/8GB) is about $49/mo — more than this 1 vCPU/0.5 GiB app needs on its own, but the smallest widely-quoted reference point; a cheaper shared-vCPU class would also run it comfortably.
• Most of the running cost above is the dedicated Postgres instance, which a self-managed box would also need to run (and back up) itself.
• The usual trade-off applies: cheaper in cash terms on a VPS, managed backups and patching on RAD.

Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it

This is the headline advantage of a RAD-managed project, and it costs nothing while paused. Deleting a RAD-managed project unlinks its billing first, then asks Google to delete the project outright — Google's own 30-day recoverable soft delete. Unlike deleting one module, this does not tear down Cloud SQL, any VM, or the compute resource one by one: the whole project simply stops, and nothing is charged while it waits, because billing is already unlinked.

Restoring, within 30 days and only by the project's owner, 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 (under US$1) in total for a typical 2-3-deployment chain.

What this needs: you must own the project (not one RAD only manages billing for), you must restore it yourself within 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/demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.

One real gap: nightly backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket has Cloud Storage's soft-delete explicitly turned off, so it is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project — even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days. If you've customised Homebox and want to keep that work, 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

In your own project, or once 30 days have passed on a RAD-managed one, there is no free pause — deleting removes the resources for good, and bringing Homebox back means redeploying from scratch. That costs about 43-46 credits (the 40-credit module fee plus a build).

Deleting only saves money once Homebox would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own running cost — for Homebox, that's about 2 days or more. Most of that running cost is usually the database (and, where this module uses one, the shared file-server VM or GKE cluster) — those stop only once nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting this app while something else shares the project saves only its own compute share.

Keep data first: nightly backups go to a bucket inside the deployment and are deleted with it, so copy the latest backup out before deleting if you want to keep it.

Lab sessions and Managed Environments

Lab sessions, for training: a trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets the app 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 the app 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 Billing Catalog API list prices; radmodules.dev/pricing for RAD's own fees and daily-credit estimates; Google's project delete/restore documentation for the pause/restore claims.

1. Overview

Homebox runs as a single Go binary (API + embedded frontend) on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a small, focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Go/Echo service, 1 vCPU / 512 MiB by default, scale-to-zero
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Homebox reads discrete HBOX_DATABASE_* env vars, not a constructed DSN
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A data bucket is created for item photos/attachments and auto-mounted at /data
Cache & queue	none	Homebox has no Redis or queue dependency
Secrets	Secret Manager	Database password plus HBOX_AUTH_API_KEY_PEPPER (a real, app-consumed secret)
Ingress	Cloud Run URL	Default run.app URL; optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is the standardized engine. Homebox_Common fixes database_type = "POSTGRES_15" and sets HBOX_DATABASE_DRIVER=postgres explicitly — Homebox defaults to embedded SQLite otherwise, whose default DSN forces journal_mode=WAL, which is unsafe over NFS/gcsfuse.
• No custom container build. Homebox's discrete Postgres env vars need no DSN construction, so the official prebuilt image (ghcr.io/sysadminsmedia/homebox) is used directly.
• Open self-registration, not a default admin account. Unlike some apps in this catalogue, Homebox does not ship a hardcoded credential: the first person to submit the "Register" form on a fresh instance becomes the initial admin user. There is no default-credential security risk, but operators should set HBOX_OPTIONS_ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false afterward to close public signups — see the Common guide for detail.
• Item photos are persisted by default. Homebox_Common declares a gcs_volumes entry mounting the data GCS bucket at Homebox's /data path, so uploaded item photos and attachments survive a revision restart. Item metadata is unaffected either way (stored in PostgreSQL).
• Request-based billing by default. cpu_always_allocated = false, min_instance_count = 0 — Homebox is a plain request/response app with no background scheduler or queue worker.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. Cloud Run — the Homebox service

• Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, and traffic splitting.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

Homebox stores all item, location, and user data in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance, connected privately via the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy over a Unix socket. On first deploy, an initialization Job creates the application database and user.

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

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --database=<db-name> --project "$PROJECT"

C. Cloud Storage

A data bucket is provisioned automatically for item photos and attachments, and is mounted into the container at /data by default.

• CLI:

  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~homebox"

D. Secret Manager

• CLI:

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

E. Networking & ingress

• CLI:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'

F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

• CLI:

  gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50

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3. Homebox Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Job runs create-db-and-user.sh using postgres:15-alpine, idempotently creating the application role and database.
• Schema migrations on start. Homebox's Ent ORM applies its own internal migrations automatically on every startup — no separate migration job runs at the platform layer.
• Open self-registration — no default admin credential. The first visitor to complete the "Register" form becomes the admin. There is no credential to retrieve, reset, or rotate — set HBOX_OPTIONS_ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false once the admin account exists to close public signups.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target /api/v1/status — Homebox's real, unauthenticated status endpoint, confirmed from the official Dockerfile's own HEALTHCHECK instruction.
• Inspect job execution:

  gcloud run jobs executions list --job <job-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

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4. Configuration Variables

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

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	homebox	Base name for resources.
application_version	latest	Homebox publishes a genuine latest tag — no remapping needed.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
container_image_source	prebuilt	No custom build needed — discrete Postgres env vars require no DSN construction.
container_port	7745	Homebox's native default port.
cpu_always_allocated	false	Request-based billing.
min_instance_count / max_instance_count	0 / 1	Scale-to-zero default.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
storage_buckets	one data bucket	Created and auto-mounted at /data for item photos.
gcs_volumes	[]	Empty means "use Homebox_Common's own /data mount"; a non-empty list replaces it.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Fixed by Homebox_Common.
db_host_env_var_name	HBOX_DATABASE_HOST	Aliases the platform DB_HOST onto Homebox's expected name.
db_user_env_var_name	HBOX_DATABASE_USERNAME	Aliases DB_USER.
db_password_env_var_name	HBOX_DATABASE_PASSWORD	Aliases DB_PASSWORD.
db_name_env_var_name	HBOX_DATABASE_DATABASE	Aliases DB_NAME.
db_port_env_var_name	HBOX_DATABASE_PORT	Aliases DB_PORT.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe / liveness_probe	HTTP /api/v1/status 30s delay	Probes target Homebox's real status endpoint.

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5. Outputs

Output	Description
service_name / service_url	Cloud Run service name and default run.app URL.
database_instance_name / database_name / database_user / database_host / database_port	Cloud SQL connection details.
storage_buckets	The data bucket for item photos and attachments.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
application_database_name / application_database_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
container_image_source	prebuilt (default)	High	"custom" triggers an unnecessary Cloud Build with no Dockerfile in this module — the build fails.
First registration	Complete promptly after deploy	Medium	The first person to register on a fresh, publicly reachable instance becomes the admin — until you register and set HBOX_OPTIONS_ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false, anyone who discovers the URL can claim the admin account.
gcs_volumes for item photos	Leave empty (use the module's own /data mount)	High	Homebox_Common already mounts the data bucket at /data. Supplying a non-empty gcs_volumes list replaces that mount entirely — if the replacement does not also cover /data, uploaded item photos and attachments fall back to Cloud Run's ephemeral filesystem and do not survive a revision restart. Item metadata is unaffected.
db_*_env_var_name variables	Leave at their Homebox-specific defaults	Critical	Changing/clearing these breaks Homebox's Postgres connection entirely — it reads HBOX_DATABASE_*, not DB_*.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. Homebox-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Homebox_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Homebox on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Homebox on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Homebox Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.