Environment Variable Name Conflict in Deployments

[DevStarlight]

When deploying applications with container orchestration systems, certain environment variable names are reserved by the system and cannot be used. The current configuration uses PORT which is one of these reserved names, causing deployment failures and automatic rollbacks.

Best Practices

It's generally considered bad practice to use common system names like PORT, HOST, PATH, etc. for custom environment variables, as they can conflict with system internals.

Suggested Solutions

Option 1: Rename the variable
Change PORT to one of these alternatives:

• APP_PORT
• SERVER_PORT
• LISTEN_PORT

Option 2: Legacy support
Keep PORT as default but set by default a port number.

const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

Option 3: Extended legacy support
Keep PORT as default but allow overriding with a custom name, maintaining backward compatibility

const port = process.env.PORT || process.env.<APP_PORT | SERVER_PORT | LISTEN_PORT> || 3000;

[ashconnell]

Hmm, PORT is basically a defacto standard at this point for all container technology. Pretty much every example and blog on the planet will tell you to use PORT.

Which system is this not working in?

[DevStarlight]

It's having issues with Knative