Outline on Google Cloud Run

Outline is a fast, collaborative, Notion-style team knowledge base and wiki with real-time editing, rich markdown documents, and powerful search — an open-source alternative to Confluence and Notion. This module deploys Outline 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 Outline 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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1. Overview

Outline runs as a Node.js container on Cloud Run v2, built from a custom image (outlinewiki/outline plus a platform entrypoint). The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Node.js service, 1 vCPU / 1 GiB by default, request-based billing, scale-to-zero
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — connected via the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy Unix socket; pg_trgm extension enabled
Cache & sessions	Redis	Required by Outline; enabled by default, served from the shared NFS host unless redis_host is set
Shared files	Filestore (NFS)	Uploaded attachments (FILE_STORAGE=local) persist across restarts and instances (gen2 required)
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A dedicated storage bucket provisioned automatically
Secrets	Secret Manager	SECRET_KEY, UTILS_SECRET, and the DB password managed automatically
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL, optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is mandatory. Outline is a Sequelize/PostgreSQL application; MySQL is not supported.
• DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL are assembled at container start. The platform injects the individual pieces (DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_HOST, DB_NAME, REDIS_HOST, …) and the custom entrypoint builds the connection URLs — never set DATABASE_URL yourself.
• The service URL is injected as URL. service_url_env_var_name defaults to URL because Outline needs its own public URL to build the OIDC redirect_uri. Without it Outline registers zero auth providers.
• An authentication provider is an operator step. The OIDC_* environment variables ship intentionally blank — until you configure an OIDC identity provider post-deploy, the login page is empty and the wiki is unusable. See §3.
• Redis is required, not optional. enable_redis defaults to true; when redis_host is empty the foundation points REDIS_URL at the shared NFS host, which co-hosts Redis.
• Uploads go to NFS. FILE_STORAGE=local with FILE_STORAGE_LOCAL_ROOT_DIR=/var/lib/outline/data, backed by the Filestore mount at the same path (25 MiB per-upload cap by default).
• FORCE_HTTPS=false is set deliberately. TLS is terminated upstream by Cloud Run; Outline's default HTTPS redirect would break the HTTP health probes.
• A db-init job runs on every apply to idempotently create the Outline PostgreSQL database and user.
• Scale-to-zero by default. min_instance_count = 0, max_instance_count = 1, request-based billing (cpu_always_allocated = false).

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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 Outline service

Outline runs as a Cloud Run v2 service listening on port 3000 that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts. An open collaborative-editing WebSocket counts as an active request, so CPU stays allocated while someone is editing even under request-based billing.

• 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"
  gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

Outline stores all application data (documents, collections, users, revisions) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. The service connects privately through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy over a Unix socket (no public IP); the entrypoint assembles the socket-form DATABASE_URL automatically and the pg_trgm extension is enabled for search. On first deploy a db-init Job creates the application database and user.

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

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

The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.

C. Filestore (NFS) and Cloud Storage

Uploaded attachments and images are written to a Filestore (NFS) share mounted at /var/lib/outline/data so all instances share the same files and uploads survive restarts. A dedicated Cloud Storage bucket (suffix storage) is also provisioned automatically. The gen2 execution environment is required for NFS mounts.

• Console: Filestore → Instances; Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for the NFS mount, GCS Fuse, and CMEK.

D. Redis

Outline requires Redis for sessions, caching, and its background queue — it will not start without a reachable Redis endpoint. When no external Redis host is configured, the foundation injects a REDIS_URL pointing at the shared NFS host, which co-hosts Redis.

• Console: Memorystore → Redis (if using a managed instance).
• CLI:

  redis-cli -h <redis-host> ping
  redis-cli -h <redis-host> info keyspace

E. Secret Manager

Three secrets are managed automatically: the database password (created by the foundation) plus Outline's SECRET_KEY and UTILS_SECRET — two 64-hex-character values (the openssl rand -hex 32 format upstream requires) created by Outline_Common and injected into the service at runtime. Plaintext never appears in configuration.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

F. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress settings and VPC egress control connectivity. Remember that Outline's URL must match the host users actually browse to — if you front the service with a custom domain, set URL accordingly.

• Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun.

G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with optional uptime checks and alert policies.

• Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
• CLI:

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

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3. Outline Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. A db-init Job (postgres:15-alpine) connects to Cloud SQL via the Auth Proxy socket and idempotently creates the Outline database and user, grants privileges, and grants the user's role to postgres so ownership can be set. The job runs on every apply and is safe to re-run.
• Migrations on every start. Outline does not auto-migrate. The custom entrypoint waits for PostgreSQL (pg_isready, up to ~3 minutes), then runs the Sequelize migrations (sequelize db:migrate --env=production-ssl-disabled) before starting the server, so version upgrades apply schema changes without a manual step.
• Connection URLs are assembled, not configured. The entrypoint builds DATABASE_URL from the platform-injected DB_* variables — socket form (?host=/cloudsql/…&sslmode=disable) on Cloud Run — and REDIS_URL from REDIS_HOST/REDIS_PORT with an NFS-host fallback. Do not set either variable manually.
• URL is injected automatically. The foundation injects the predicted service URL as URL (via service_url_env_var_name = "URL"). Outline uses it to build the OIDC redirect_uri and every absolute link. Override it only when serving from a custom domain.
• Authentication is a REQUIRED post-deploy step. The OIDC_* placeholders ship blank, and with them blank the login page shows zero providers — the deploy is healthy but nobody can sign in. To wire Google as the IdP, for example:

  gcloud run services update <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" \
    --update-env-vars=OIDC_AUTH_URI=https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth,\
  OIDC_TOKEN_URI=https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token,\
  OIDC_USERINFO_URI=https://openidconnect.googleapis.com/v1/userinfo,\
  OIDC_USERNAME_CLAIM=email

  Then bind the client credentials as secrets. Gotcha: OIDC_CLIENT_ID/OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET ship as plain empty env vars, and gcloud refuses to convert an env var to a secret reference in one step ("already set with a different type") — remove them first, then update:

  gcloud run services update <service-name> --region "$REGION" \
    --remove-env-vars=OIDC_CLIENT_ID,OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET
  gcloud run services update <service-name> --region "$REGION" \
    --update-secrets=OIDC_CLIENT_ID=<client-id-secret>:latest,OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=<client-secret-secret>:latest

  Register <URL>/auth/oidc.callback as an authorized redirect URI on the same host as URL — the URL, the registered callback, and the browser must all agree on one hostname.
• HTTPS redirect disabled on purpose. FORCE_HTTPS=false because TLS is terminated by Cloud Run's front end; Outline's own 301-to-HTTPS redirect would send the HTTP health probes to a port with no listener and crash-loop the container. Operators terminating TLS themselves can override via environment_variables.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target /, which responds once migrations have completed and Redis is connected. The startup probe allows a 60-second initial delay plus six 10-second retries.
• Verification. Confirm the deployed revision received the injected URL and DB wiring:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" \
    --format="json(spec.template.spec.containers[0].env)" | grep -E '"URL"|DB_HOST|REDIS'

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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 Outline are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.

Group 1 — Project & Identity

Variable	Default	Description
project_id	(required)	Target Google Cloud project.
region	us-central1	Region for the service 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	outline	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	Outline	Friendly name shown in the Console.
application_version	latest	Outline image version tag; increment to trigger a new build and revision.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance; 1 vCPU minimum for Outline.
memory_limit	1Gi	Memory per instance; 2 GiB recommended for production (full-text search, asset handling).
cpu_always_allocated	false	Request-based billing. An open editing WebSocket counts as an active request; set true only if you rely on Outline's background queue (email notifications, backlink indexing) running between requests.
min_instance_count	0	Scale-to-zero by default; set 1 to avoid cold starts.
max_instance_count	1	Cost ceiling; raise for heavier concurrent editing.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy socket. Required — Outline's Postgres connection uses the socket form.
execution_environment	gen2	Required for the NFS mount.
timeout_seconds	300	Per-request timeout; raise for large exports.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in via Identity-Aware Proxy.
ingress_settings	all	Which networks may reach the service (all / internal / LB-only).
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	How outbound traffic routes through the VPC connector.

Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Merged over the built-in Outline config. This is where you configure the required auth provider (OIDC_AUTH_URI, OIDC_TOKEN_URI, OIDC_USERINFO_URI, …) and optionally override URL. Do not set DATABASE_URL/REDIS_URL here.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name (use for OIDC_CLIENT_ID/OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET).
secret_rotation_period	2592000s	Rotation notification frequency.

Group 7 — Backup & Restore

Variable	Default	Description
backup_schedule	0 2 * * *	Automated backup cron (UTC).
backup_retention_days	7	Retention; raise for production/compliance.
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri / backup_format	restore options	Restore from a backup on deploy.

Group 8 — CI/CD & Binary Authorization

Standard App_CloudRun Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy integration — see App_CloudRun. Key inputs: enable_cicd_trigger, github_repository_url, github_token, enable_cloud_deploy, enable_binary_authorization, binauthz_evaluation_mode.

Group 9 — Custom SQL

enable_custom_sql_scripts, custom_sql_scripts_bucket, custom_sql_scripts_path, custom_sql_scripts_use_root — run SQL from a GCS bucket after provisioning. See App_CloudRun.

Group 10 — Domain, CDN, Cloud Armor & Image Retention

Variable	Default	Description
application_domains	[]	Custom hostnames for the external load balancer. Outline must know its public URL — set URL to match.
enable_cdn / enable_cloud_armor / admin_ip_ranges	off	CDN / WAF options.
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days	(set)	Artifact Registry cleanup policy.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	Shared Filestore volume for uploaded files. Requires gen2.
nfs_mount_path	/var/lib/outline/data	Mount path — must match FILE_STORAGE_LOCAL_ROOT_DIR.
create_cloud_storage / storage_buckets / gcs_volumes	(set)	Additional buckets / GCS Fuse mounts. The storage bucket is always provisioned automatically.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Outline requires PostgreSQL — do not change to MySQL.
db_name	outline	PostgreSQL database name. Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	outline	Application user. Immutable after first deploy.
database_password_length	32	Generated password length (16–64).
service_url_env_var_name	URL	Injects the predicted service URL as URL. Do not blank this — without URL Outline registers zero auth providers.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job (postgres:15-alpine).
cron_jobs	[]	Recurring jobs triggered by Cloud Scheduler.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /, 60s initial delay, 6 failures	Allows time for first-boot migrations and Redis connection.
liveness_probe	HTTP /, 60s initial delay, 30s period	Restarts the container after 3 consecutive failures.
uptime_check_config	disabled, path /	Cloud Monitoring uptime check.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 21 — Redis Cache

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	true	Required — Outline will not run without Redis.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint. Leave empty to use the shared NFS host (co-hosts Redis).
redis_port	6379	Redis port.
redis_auth	""	Optional Redis auth password (sensitive).

Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging

Variable	Default	Description
enable_vpc_sc	false	Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (requires organization_id).
vpc_cidr_ranges / vpc_sc_dry_run	(set)	Access level CIDRs / dry-run mode.
enable_audit_logging	false	Detailed Cloud Audit Logs.

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5. Outputs

Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Cloud Run service name.
service_url	Default run.app URL of the service.
service_location	Region the service runs in.
stage_services	Stage-specific service URLs (Cloud Deploy).
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url	External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled).
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Application database name / user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets (includes the storage bucket).
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names	Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks.
initialization_jobs	Names of the setup jobs.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name / cicd_configuration	CI/CD status and details.
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id	Registry and build trigger.
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.

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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
OIDC_* environment variables	configured post-deploy	Critical	Ship intentionally blank — until an IdP is configured the login page shows zero providers and the wiki is unusable, even though the deploy is healthy.
service_url_env_var_name	URL	Critical	Blanking it removes the injected URL; Outline cannot build the OIDC redirect_uri and registers no auth providers.
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Critical	Outline requires PostgreSQL; MySQL breaks startup.
db_name / db_user	set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all documents.
enable_redis	true	Critical	Outline requires Redis for sessions and its queue; without it the container never becomes healthy.
enable_nfs	true	Critical	Without shared storage, uploaded attachments are lost between instances/restarts.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Critical	The entrypoint's Postgres connection uses the Auth Proxy socket; direct private-IP TCP is rejected by Cloud SQL without SSL config.
DATABASE_URL / REDIS_URL in environment_variables	never set	High	The entrypoint assembles both correctly per platform; a hand-set value overrides it with the wrong host form.
FORCE_HTTPS	false (module default)	High	Re-enabling makes Outline 301-redirect the HTTP health probes → probe failure → crash loop. TLS is already terminated by Cloud Run.
OIDC secret binding	remove-then-update	High	OIDC_CLIENT_ID/SECRET are plain empty env vars; a single --update-secrets fails with "already set with a different type" — --remove-env-vars them first.
OIDC redirect URI	<URL>/auth/oidc.callback on the same host as URL	High	Host mismatch between URL, the registered callback, and the browser breaks the OAuth round-trip.
nfs_mount_path	/var/lib/outline/data	High	Must match FILE_STORAGE_LOCAL_ROOT_DIR, or uploads land on ephemeral disk and vanish.
startup_probe initial_delay_seconds	60	High	Reducing it kills Outline before first-boot Sequelize migrations finish.
execution_environment	gen2	High	NFS mounts require gen2; gen1 cannot mount Filestore.
memory_limit	1Gi+ (2Gi prod)	Medium	Too little memory OOMs Node.js during search indexing or large exports.
min_instance_count	0 (dev) / 1 (prod)	Medium	0 adds a cold start (with migration check) to the first request after idle.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.

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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. Outline-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Outline_Common.