RAGFlow on Google Cloud Run

RAGFlow is an open-source document intelligence and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) platform. It ingests PDFs, Word documents, HTML pages, and other formats, chunks and embeds them, stores vectors in Elasticsearch, exposes a REST API for question-answering, and provides a web UI for knowledge base management and enterprise search. This module deploys RAGFlow 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 RAGFlow 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.

Deployment prerequisite: RAGFlow_CloudRun requires Elasticsearch_GKE to be deployed first. The elasticsearch_hosts variable must be set when deploy_application = true — the plan is rejected if it is empty.

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1. Overview

RAGFlow runs as a containerised Python/Nginx service on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Custom-built RAGFlow service, 2 vCPU / 4 GiB by default, cold-start (min_instance_count = 0) by default
Database	Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0	Required — RAGFlow does not support PostgreSQL
Vector search	Elasticsearch (Elasticsearch_GKE)	External dependency — must be deployed first; elasticsearch_hosts is mandatory
Task queue	Redis (Memorystore)	Required for document processing workers
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A dedicated ragflow-documents bucket
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated database password
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL; optional Cloud Armor HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• MySQL 8.0 is mandatory. Selecting PostgreSQL or NONE breaks startup.
• elasticsearch_hosts is required. RAGFlow cannot index or search documents without a reachable Elasticsearch endpoint. This check is skipped only when deploy_application = false.
• Redis is required for document processing. With enable_redis = true (default) and a non-empty redis_host, REDIS_HOST and REDIS_PORT are injected automatically. Without Redis, uploaded files remain unprocessed indefinitely.
• Cold-start by default. min_instance_count = 0 and cpu_always_allocated = false (request-based billing) — the service scales to zero when idle and only bills CPU while serving a request. Trade-off: the background document task-executor stops when idle, so ingestion/parsing of newly uploaded documents does not run in the background; querying/chat still works on-request. Set cpu_always_allocated = true and min_instance_count >= 1 to restore continuous background ingestion (and avoid the 2–3 minute cold-start while embedding models load).
• Gen2 execution environment is required for NFS. execution_environment = "gen2" is the default; switching to gen1 with enable_nfs = true fails at plan time.
• A custom image is always built. Cloud Build extends infiniflow/ragflow using the Dockerfile in RAGFlow_Common/scripts/, with APP_VERSION set from application_version.
• service_conf.yaml is generated at startup. The custom entrypoint writes /ragflow/conf/service_conf.yaml from injected environment variables before starting the RAGFlow processes. A socat bridge adapts the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy Unix socket to the TCP port that RAGFlow's MySQL client expects.

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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 RAGFlow service

RAGFlow runs as a Cloud Run v2 service. By default it scales to zero when idle (min_instance_count = 0, cpu_always_allocated = false); set both to keep an instance warm and avoid cold-start delays during embedding model loading. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.

• 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 MySQL 8.0

RAGFlow stores all application metadata (user accounts, knowledge bases, task state) in a managed Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.0 instance. The service connects privately through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar via a Unix socket. A socat bridge inside the container maps that socket to 127.0.0.1:3306 for RAGFlow's TCP MySQL client. 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 "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$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. Elasticsearch — vector search

RAGFlow requires an external Elasticsearch instance for document indexing and vector search. Deploy Elasticsearch_GKE separately and pass its elasticsearch_endpoint output as elasticsearch_hosts. The environment variables ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTS and ELASTICSEARCH_USERNAME are injected automatically. Inline Elasticsearch is not supported on Cloud Run.

• Console: Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → Elasticsearch namespace.
• CLI:

  # Confirm RAGFlow can reach Elasticsearch (from Cloud Shell or a VPC-connected host):
  curl -s "$ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTS/_cluster/health" | grep status

D. Redis — task queue

Redis is the backbone of RAGFlow's document processing pipeline. Workers poll Redis for tasks; without it, uploaded files are never parsed, chunked, or embedded. The Memorystore Redis instance is accessed over the VPC via the PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY VPC egress setting (the default).

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

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

E. Cloud Storage

A dedicated Cloud Storage bucket (ragflow-documents) is provisioned for document ingestion and storage. Additional buckets and GCS Fuse volume mounts can be added via storage_buckets and gcs_volumes. The workload service account is granted access automatically.

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for GCS Fuse and CMEK options.

F. Secret Manager

The database password is stored in Secret Manager and injected into the service at runtime; plaintext never appears in configuration.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

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

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

G. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with Cloud Armor WAF, a custom domain, and Cloud CDN can be layered on. VPC egress is set to PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY by default so Redis and MySQL traffic flows over the private VPC while public egress remains unrestricted.

• 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.

H. 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. RAGFlow Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. An initialization Cloud Run Job (mysql:8.0-debian) creates the RAGFlow database (rag_flow) and user (ragflow) before the service starts. It is idempotent and safe to re-run.

• service_conf.yaml generated at startup. The custom entrypoint generates /ragflow/conf/service_conf.yaml from injected environment variables — including MySQL host/user/database, Elasticsearch endpoint, Redis host/port, and optional credentials — before starting the RAGFlow processes. A socat bridge adapts the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy Unix socket to 127.0.0.1:3306 for RAGFlow's MySQL client.

• Document processing pipeline. Uploaded documents are queued in Redis and processed asynchronously by RAGFlow's document workers: OCR, chunking, embedding, and indexing into Elasticsearch. Without a reachable Redis and Elasticsearch, files appear uploaded but are never processed.

• Embedding model loading on startup. RAGFlow downloads and loads embedding models during first boot. The startup probe targets /v1/system/version with a 120-second initial delay and 30 failure retries. Set min_instance_count >= 1 with cpu_always_allocated = true to avoid cold starts and keep background document processing running continuously.

• Health endpoints. Startup and liveness probes use /v1/system/version. The uptime check (if enabled) targets /v1/health. These return HTTP 200 only when the application is fully initialised.

  Inspect job executions:

  gcloud run jobs list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  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 RAGFlow 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.
elasticsearch_hosts	(required)	Elasticsearch HTTP endpoint (e.g. http://10.0.0.5:9200). Set to the elasticsearch_endpoint output from Elasticsearch_GKE.

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	ragflow	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	RAGFlow	Friendly name shown in the Console.
description	(set)	Service description.
application_version	v0.13.0	RAGFlow image version tag passed as APP_VERSION to Cloud Build; increment to roll out a new version.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
cpu_limit	2000m	CPU per instance; 4 vCPU or more recommended for production document processing.
memory_limit	4Gi	Memory per instance; 8–16 GiB recommended for production.
cpu_always_allocated	false	Cost-first cold-start default. true restores continuous background document processing between requests.
min_instance_count	0	Scales to zero when idle. Set ≥ 1 (with cpu_always_allocated = true) to keep the background task-executor and embedding models warm.
max_instance_count	1	Maximum instances; increase with caution (requires NFS for shared storage).
container_port	80	RAGFlow's Nginx frontend listens on port 80.
execution_environment	gen2	Must remain gen2 — required for NFS mounts.
timeout_seconds	600	Increase for large document processing requests (max 3600).
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar for socket connections.
traffic_split	[]	Split traffic across revisions for staged rollouts.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Which networks may reach the service (all, internal, internal-and-cloud-load-balancing).
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	Route private RFC-1918 traffic (Redis, MySQL) through the VPC.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in via Identity-Aware Proxy.
iap_authorized_users / iap_authorized_groups	[]	Who may access through IAP.

Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Extra non-secret settings. Do not override MYSQL_*, ELASTICSEARCH_*, or REDIS_* — these are injected automatically.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name.
secret_propagation_delay / secret_rotation_period	(set)	Replication wait / rotation cadence.

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.

Group 9 — Custom SQL Scripts

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 — Cloud Armor, CDN & Custom Domain

Variable	Default	Description
enable_cloud_armor	false	Attach a Cloud Armor WAF policy via a Global HTTPS Load Balancer.
admin_ip_ranges	[]	CIDRs allowed privileged access.
application_domains	[]	Custom hostnames for the HTTPS load balancer.
enable_cdn	false	Enable Cloud CDN on the LB backend.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
create_cloud_storage	true	Provision additional GCS buckets. The ragflow-documents bucket is always created.
storage_buckets	[{ name_suffix="data" }]	Additional GCS bucket configurations.
enable_nfs	true	Shared Filestore volume. Required for multi-instance deployments and when redis_host is empty (NFS server IP used as fallback Redis host).
nfs_mount_path	/mnt/nfs	Mount path inside the container.
gcs_volumes	[]	GCS Fuse volumes mounted into the RAGFlow container.
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek	false	CMEK options.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	MYSQL_8_0	Fixed — do not change.
db_name	rag_flow	Database name. Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	ragflow	Application user. Immutable after first deploy.
database_password_length	32	Generated password length (16–64).
enable_auto_password_rotation / rotation_propagation_delay_sec	off	DB password rotation.
db_host_env_var_name / db_name_env_var_name / db_user_env_var_name / db_port_env_var_name / service_url_env_var_name	""	Additional env var names under which connection details are injected.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init Cloud Run Job.
cron_jobs	[]	Recurring scheduled Cloud Run Jobs.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /v1/system/version, 120s delay, 30 retries	Allows ample time for embedding model loading on first boot.
liveness_probe	HTTP /v1/system/version, 120s delay	Liveness probe once startup succeeds.
uptime_check_config	disabled	Cloud Monitoring uptime check.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 15 — Elasticsearch & Redis

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	true	Use Redis for the document processing task queue. Redis is wired only when redis_host is non-empty.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint. Must be set explicitly — no NFS-based auto-discovery on Cloud Run.
redis_port	6379	Redis port.
redis_auth	""	Optional Redis auth password (sensitive).
elasticsearch_username	""	Elasticsearch username. Leave empty when xpack.security.enabled = false.

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 details (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.
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
elasticsearch_hosts	required — set from Elasticsearch_GKE	Critical	RAGFlow cannot index or search; all ingestion and retrieval operations fail. Plan is rejected when empty and deploy_application = true.
enable_redis	true	Critical	Without Redis the document processing queue never runs; uploaded files remain unprocessed indefinitely.
database_type	MYSQL_8_0	Critical	RAGFlow requires MySQL; PostgreSQL/NONE breaks startup.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Critical	RAGFlow connects via Unix socket bridged to TCP by socat; disabling the proxy sidecar causes a database connection failure on startup.
db_name / db_user	set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the database/user and destroys data.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job.
redis_host	explicit Memorystore IP	High	An unreachable or empty Redis host silently breaks all async document workers. There is no NFS-based auto-discovery fallback on Cloud Run.
min_instance_count / cpu_always_allocated	1 / true for continuous ingestion	High	Defaults are 0 / false (cold-start): background document processing stops while idle and cold starts take 2–3 minutes. Set both for always-on ingestion.
memory_limit	4Gi (≥ 8Gi for prod)	High	Embedding models plus the application server require significant RAM; too little causes OOM kills.
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	High	Memorystore Redis is on a private VPC IP; wrong egress routing breaks the task queue.
execution_environment	gen2	High	NFS mounts require gen2; switching to gen1 with enable_nfs = true fails at plan time.
elasticsearch_username	"" or correct user	High	If Elasticsearch security is enabled, leaving this blank causes HTTP 401 and breaks all indexing.
enable_nfs	true	High	Multi-instance deployments without shared storage see inconsistent document views across instances.
ingress_settings / enable_iap	restrict for production	High	Public ingress with no IAP exposes RAGFlow to unauthenticated callers.
max_instance_count	1 (increase only with NFS)	Medium	Scaling beyond 1 without NFS causes split-brain document access across instances.
timeout_seconds	600	Medium	Large document uploads can take several minutes; too short causes 504 timeouts before processing completes.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.
application_version	v0.13.0	Medium	Incrementing triggers an image rebuild and revision rollout; verify MySQL schema compatibility for major version jumps.

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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. RAGFlow-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in RAGFlow_Common.