2 posts tagged with "authoring"

A template that only ever runs one way is just a Compose file with extra ceremony. The whole point of publishing to the Bazaar — or even sharing a template across two Marquees — is that the next person fills in their own subdomain, their own image tag, their own database password, and gets a working environment without editing your YAML. That is what template variables are for.

The catch is that variables in Fibe are not Compose's ${VAR} interpolation. They are a separate compile-time layer with its own declaration block, its own substitution rules, and its own ways to fail. Get the mental model right and they are boring and reliable. Get it wrong and you ship a template that compiles to an empty string in production, or hard-fails on launch with a cryptic error. This guide is the version we wish someone had handed us: how to declare variables, where the values can land, and which mistakes actually bite.

You already have a docker-compose.yml. It runs on your laptop, it has a web service and a database, and you've typed docker compose up enough times to have it memorized. The promise of Fibe is that the same file — almost unchanged — becomes a launchable environment with a real HTTPS URL, logs, and a terminal, running on a host you control. No Kubernetes manifests, no rewrite, no new DSL to learn.

The trick is that a Fibe template is a Compose file. You don't convert it into something else; you add a few labels to the services that need them, and Fibe reads those to handle routing, TLS, and lifecycle for you. This post walks the minimal additions on a small, real example, explains what each one buys you, and ends with you clicking Launch and getting a URL.