Getting Started on Heroku Fir with Node.js

Introduction

Complete this tutorial to deploy a sample Node.js app to Heroku Private Spaces on the Fir generation of the platform. To deploy the app to the Common Runtime or Cedar Private Spaces, follow this guide instead.

The tutorial assumes that you have:

• A verified Heroku Account
• An existing Fir Private Space
• A team admin role or the app creation permission
• An SSH key added to your Heroku account
• Node.js and npm installed locally
• Postgres installed locally

Set Up

Install the Heroku Command Line Interface (CLI). Use the CLI to manage and scale your app, provision add-ons, view your logs, and run your app locally.

Download and run the installer for your platform:

After installation, you can use the heroku command from your command shell.

To log in to the Heroku CLI, use the heroku login command:

$ heroku login
heroku: Press any key to open up the browser to login or q to exit:
Opening browser to https://cli-auth.heroku.com/auth/cli/browser/***
heroku: Waiting for login...
Logging in... done
Logged in as me@example.com

This command opens your web browser to the Heroku login page. If your browser is already logged in to Heroku, click the Log In button on the page.

This authentication is required for the heroku and git commands to work correctly.

If you have any problems installing or using the Heroku CLI, see the main Heroku CLI article for advice and troubleshooting steps.

Clone the Sample App

Clone the sample application to get a local version of the code. Execute these commands in your local command shell or terminal:

$ git clone https://github.com/heroku/node-js-getting-started.git
$ cd node-js-getting-started

You now have a functioning Git repository that contains a simple application. It includes a package.json file, which a Node.js dependency manager (like npm), can use to install dependencies.

Create Your App in a Fir Space

 

Create an app on Heroku to prepare the platform to receive your source code by replacing <space-name> with the name of your Fir space in the command below:

$ heroku create --space <space-name>
Creating app in space <space name>...
Creating app in space <space name>... done, young-brushlands-43107
http://young-brushlands-43107-9e8f2a3b3661.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/young-brushlands-43107.git

When you create an app, a Git remote called heroku also gets created and associated with your local Git repository. Git remotes are versions of your repository that live on other servers. You deploy your app by pushing its code to that special Heroku-hosted remote associated with your app.

Heroku generates a random name for your app, in this case, young-brushlands-43107. You can specify your own app name.

Deploy the App

Deploy your code. This command pushes the main branch of the sample repo to your heroku remote, which then deploys to Heroku:

$ git push heroku main
remote: Updated 18 paths from 26bd6e0
remote: Compressing source files... done.
remote: Building source:
remote: Waiting on build...
remote: Extracting source
remote: Image with name "young-brushlands-43107/builds" not found
remote: 3 of 6 buildpacks participating
remote: heroku/nodejs-engine      3.4.0
remote: heroku/nodejs-npm-install 3.4.0
remote: heroku/procfile           3.1.2
remote:
remote: [Heroku Node.js Engine Buildpack]
remote:
remote: [Checking Node.js version]
remote: Detected Node.js version range: >=18.0.0 <19.0.0-0||>=20.0.0 <21.0.0-0||>=22.0.0 <23.0.0-0
remote: Resolved Node.js version: 22.12.0
remote:
remote: [Installing Node.js distribution]
remote: Downloading Node.js 22.12.0 (linux-arm64) from https://nodejs.org/download/release/v22.12.0/node-v22.12.0-linux-arm64.tar.gz
remote: Verifying checksum
remote: Extracting Node.js 22.12.0 (linux-arm64)
remote: Installing Node.js 22.12.0 (linux-arm64)
remote: Installing application metrics scripts
remote:
remote: # Heroku Node.js npm Install Buildpack
remote:
remote: - Installing node modules
remote:   - Using npm version `10.9.0`
remote:   - Creating npm cache
remote:   - Configuring npm cache directory
remote:   - Running `npm ci "--production=false"`
remote:
remote:       npm warn config production Use `--omit=dev` instead.
remote:
remote:       added 345 packages, and audited 346 packages in 4s
remote:
remote:       44 packages are looking for funding
remote:         run `npm fund` for details
remote:
remote:       found 0 vulnerabilities
remote:
remote:   - Done (4.356s)
remote: - Running scripts
remote:   - No build scripts found
remote: - Configuring default processes
remote:   - Skipping default web process (Procfile detected)
remote: - Done (finished in 4.930s)
remote:
remote: [Discovering process types]
remote: Procfile declares types -> web
remote: Adding layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics'
remote: Adding layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env'
remote: Adding layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config'
remote: Adding layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launch.sbom'
remote: Added 1/1 app layer(s)
remote: Adding layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launcher'
remote: Adding layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:config'
remote: Adding layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:process-types'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.lifecycle.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.build.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.project.metadata'
remote: Setting default process type 'web'
remote: Saving young-brushlands-43107/builds...
remote: *** Images (sha256:8cd5ecfa038861e0f945bd8e1453ecb3431fdf06800b821c7dacc400667948ef):
remote:       young-brushlands-43107/builds:de6fefc8-ce7b-46a0-af91-cd52ba8c595d
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache'
remote: Uploading cache
remote: Launching...
remote: http://young-brushlands-43107-9e8f2a3b3661.herokuapp.com/ deployed to Heroku
remote: Verifying deploy... done.
To https://git.heroku.com/young-brushlands-43107.git
 * [new branch]      main -> main

The app is now deployed. The default dyno size for Fir Private Spaces is 1X-Classic.

Visit the app at the URL shown in the logs. As a shortcut, you can also open the website as follows:

$ heroku open

Define a Procfile

Use a Procfile, a text file in the root directory of your application, to explicitly declare what command to execute to start your app.

The Procfile in the example app looks like this:

web: node start

This Procfile declares a single process type, web, and the command needed to run it. The name web is important here. It declares that this process type is attached to Heroku’s HTTP routing stack and receives web traffic when deployed. This command uses the start script specified in package.json to run the application.

A Procfile can contain additional process types. For example, you can declare a background worker process that processes items off a queue.

Declare App Dependencies

Heroku recognizes an app as Node.js from a package.json file in the root directory. For your own apps, you can create one by running npm init --yes.

The demo app you deployed already has a package.json that looks like:

{
  "name": "node-js-getting-started",
  "private": true,
  "description": "A sample Node.js app using Express",
  "engines": {
    "node": "18.x || 20.x || 22.x"
  },
  ...
  "dependencies": {
    "ejs": "^3.1.10",
    "express": "^5.0.1"
  },
  ...

The package.json file determines the version of Node.js to run your application on Heroku and the dependencies to install with your application.

Run this command in your local directory to install the dependencies, preparing your system to run the app locally.

$ npm install
added 346 packages, and audited 347 packages in 1s

44 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

After installation, a package-lock.json file is generated when npm install is run. Make sure to check this into Git. When subsequent dependencies are added, npm makes changes to this file, so make sure to add those changes to Git too.

When an app is deployed, Heroku reads the package.json to install the appropriate node version and the package-lock.json to install the dependencies.

Run the App Locally

Start your application locally using the heroku local command, which installed as part of the Heroku CLI.

$ heroku local web --port 5006
[OKAY] Loaded ENV .env File as KEY=VALUE Format
2:05:11 PM web.1 |  Listening on 5006

Just like Heroku, heroku local examines the Procfile to determine what to run.

Open http://localhost:5006 with your web browser to see your app running locally.

To stop the app from running locally, in the CLI, press Ctrl+C to exit.

Push Local Changes

In this step, you learn how to propagate a local change to the application through to Heroku. As an example, lets modify the application to add a dependency and the code to use it.

Begin by adding a dependency for cool-ascii-faces in package.json. Run this command.

$ npm install cool-ascii-faces
added 11 packages, and audited 358 packages in 1s

44 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

Modify index.js so that it requires this module at the start. Also add a new route (/cool) that uses it. You want the final code to look like:

const express = require('express')
const path = require('path')
const cool = require('cool-ascii-faces')

const port = process.env.PORT || 5006

const app = express()

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')))
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'))
app.set('view engine', 'ejs')

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.render('pages/index')
})

app.get('/cool', (req, res) => {
  res.send(cool())
})

const server = app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on ${port}`)
})

process.on('SIGTERM', async () => {
  console.log('SIGTERM signal received: gracefully shutting down')
  if (server) {
    server.close(() => {
      console.log('HTTP server closed')
    })
  }
})

Test locally.

When you visit your application at http://localhost:5001/cool, the sample application shows you cute faces on each refresh: ( ⚆ _ ⚆ ).

Deploy. Almost every deploy to Heroku follows this same pattern. First, add the modified files to the local Git repository.

$ git add .

Commit the changes to the repository.

$ git commit -m "Add cool face API"
[main 8741bb5] Add cool face API
 3 files changed, 98 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Deploy, just as you did previously.

$ git push heroku main
remote: Updated 18 paths from 94ce336
remote: Compressing source files... done.
remote: Building source:
remote: Extracting source
remote: Restoring cache
remote: Restoring data for SBOM from previous image
remote: 3 of 6 buildpacks participating
remote: heroku/nodejs-engine      3.4.0
remote: heroku/nodejs-npm-install 3.4.0
remote: heroku/procfile           3.1.2
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:dist" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache" from cache
remote: Restoring data for "heroku/nodejs-engine:dist" from cache
remote: Restoring data for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache" from cache
remote:
remote: [Heroku Node.js Engine Buildpack]
remote:
remote: [Checking Node.js version]
remote: Detected Node.js version range: >=18.0.0 <19.0.0-0||>=20.0.0 <21.0.0-0||>=22.0.0 <23.0.0-0
remote: Resolved Node.js version: 22.12.0
remote:
remote: [Installing Node.js distribution]
remote: Reusing Node.js 22.12.0 (linux-arm64)
remote: Installing application metrics scripts
remote:
remote: # Heroku Node.js npm Install Buildpack
remote:
remote: - Installing node modules
remote:   - Using npm version `10.9.0`
remote:   - Restoring npm cache
remote:   - Configuring npm cache directory
remote:   - Running `npm ci "--production=false"`
remote:
remote:       npm warn config production Use `--omit=dev` instead.
remote:
remote:       added 356 packages, and audited 357 packages in 3s
remote:
remote:       44 packages are looking for funding
remote:         run `npm fund` for details
remote:
remote:       found 0 vulnerabilities
remote:
remote:   - Done (3.285s)
remote: - Running scripts
remote:   - No build scripts found
remote: - Configuring default processes
remote:   - Skipping default web process (Procfile detected)
remote: - Done (finished in 3.532s)
remote:
remote: [Discovering process types]
remote: Procfile declares types -> web
remote: Reusing layers from image 'young-brushlands-43107/builds@sha256:8cd5ecfa038861e0f945bd8e1453ecb3431fdf06800b821c7dacc400667948ef'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launch.sbom'
remote: Added 1/1 app layer(s)
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launcher'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:config'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:process-types'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.lifecycle.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.build.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.project.metadata'
remote: Setting default process type 'web'
remote: Saving young-brushlands-43107/builds...
remote: *** Images (sha256:b5a697e2bd14a1f7349a8004e6d74c67d649238aae1c15f258c0d94b35dd6468):
remote:       young-brushlands-43107/builds:7932a9d9-423b-4ad3-a8c1-d2a775fb69f6
remote: Reusing cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache'
remote: Uploading cache
remote: Launching...
remote: https://young-brushlands-43107-9e8f2a3b3661.herokuapp.com/ deployed to Heroku
remote: Verifying deploy... done.
To https://git.heroku.com/young-brushlands-43107.git
   c13fb98..8741bb5  main -> main

Check that everything works.

$ heroku open cool

If everything is in working order, you see another face.

Start a Console

The heroku run command to launch an interactive one-off dyno is unavailable for Fir. As an alternative, use heroku run:inside to access a running dyno until we add heroku run for Fir.

To execute the command you need the name of a currently running process. You can see a list with heroku ps:

$ heroku ps
=== web (1X-Classic): node index.js (1)

web-dd4b7d49b-7x7bs: up 2024/12/16 14:07:43 -0600 (~ 11s ago)

Use that dyno name to run an interactive bash session:

$ heroku run:inside web-dd4b7d49b-7x7bs "bash"
Running launcher bash on young-brushlands-43107...
Running launcher bash on young-brushlands-43107... up, web-dd4b7d49b-7x7bs
heroku@web-dd4b7d49b-7x7bs:/workspace$ ls -lah
total 228K
drwxrwsrwx.   6 heroku heroku  16K Jan  1  1980 .
drwxr-xr-x.   1 root   root     17 Dec 16 20:07 ..
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku  226 Jan  1  1980 .env
drwxr-xr-x.   2 heroku heroku   46 Jan  1  1980 .github
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku  139 Jan  1  1980 .gitignore
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku   19 Jan  1  1980 Procfile
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku 3.0K Jan  1  1980 README.md
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku  331 Jan  1  1980 app.json
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku  700 Jan  1  1980 index.js
drwxr-sr-x. 270 heroku heroku  16K Jan  1  1980 node_modules
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku 163K Jan  1  1980 package-lock.json
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku  601 Jan  1  1980 package.json
drwxr-xr-x.   3 heroku heroku   62 Jan  1  1980 public
-rw-r--r--.   1 heroku heroku 1.6K Jan  1  1980 test.js
drwxr-xr-x.   4 heroku heroku   35 Jan  1  1980 views
heroku@web-dd4b7d49b-7x7bs:/workspace$ exit
exit

Type exit to exit the shell and terminate the dyno.

Define Config Vars

With Heroku, you can externalize configuration, storing data such as encryption keys or external resource addresses in config vars.

At runtime, config vars are exposed as environment variables to the application. For example, lets modify index.js to introduce a new route, /times, that repeats an action depending on the value of the TIMES environment variable. Copy the following into index.js:

const express = require('express')
const path = require('path')
const cool = require('cool-ascii-faces')

const port = process.env.PORT || 5006

const app = express()

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')))
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'))
app.set('view engine', 'ejs')

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.render('pages/index')
})

app.get('/cool', (req, res) => {
  res.send(cool())
})

app.get('/times', (req, res) => {
  const times = process.env.TIMES || 5
  let result = ''
  for (i = 0; i < times; i++) {
    result += i + ' '
  }
  res.send(result)
})

const server = app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on ${port}`)
})

process.on('SIGTERM', async () => {
  console.log('SIGTERM signal received: gracefully shutting down')
  if (server) {
    server.close(() => {
      console.log('HTTP server closed')
    })
  }
})

heroku local automatically sets up the environment based on the contents of the .env file in your local directory. In the top-level directory of your project, the .env file already contains the following:

TIMES=2

If you run the app with heroku local --port 5006 and then open http://localhost:5001/times, you see two numbers generated every time.

To set the config var on Heroku, execute this command.

$ heroku config:set TIMES=2
Setting TIMES and restarting young-brushlands-43107...
Setting TIMES and restarting young-brushlands-43107... done, v5
TIMES: 2

View the config vars that are set using heroku config.

$ heroku config
=== young-brushlands-43107 Config Vars

TIMES: 2

Add the modified files to the local Git repository.

$ git add .

Commit the changes to the repository.

$ git commit -m "Add /times route"
[main 7c7f94f] Add /times route
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)

Deploy the changes to Heroku.

$ git push heroku main
remote: Updated 18 paths from d3ecb9c
remote: Compressing source files... done.
remote: Building source:
remote: Extracting source
remote: Restoring cache
remote: Restoring data for SBOM from previous image
remote: 3 of 6 buildpacks participating
remote: heroku/nodejs-engine      3.4.0
remote: heroku/nodejs-npm-install 3.4.0
remote: heroku/procfile           3.1.2
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:dist" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache" from cache
remote: Restoring data for "heroku/nodejs-engine:dist" from cache
remote: Restoring data for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache" from cache
remote:
remote: [Heroku Node.js Engine Buildpack]
remote:
remote: [Checking Node.js version]
remote: Detected Node.js version range: >=18.0.0 <19.0.0-0||>=20.0.0 <21.0.0-0||>=22.0.0 <23.0.0-0
remote: Resolved Node.js version: 22.12.0
remote:
remote: [Installing Node.js distribution]
remote: Reusing Node.js 22.12.0 (linux-arm64)
remote: Installing application metrics scripts
remote:
remote: # Heroku Node.js npm Install Buildpack
remote:
remote: - Installing node modules
remote:   - Using npm version `10.9.0`
remote:   - Restoring npm cache
remote:   - Configuring npm cache directory
remote:   - Running `npm ci "--production=false"`
remote:
remote:       npm warn config production Use `--omit=dev` instead.
remote:
remote:       added 356 packages, and audited 357 packages in 3s
remote:
remote:       44 packages are looking for funding
remote:         run `npm fund` for details
remote:
remote:       found 0 vulnerabilities
remote:
remote:   - Done (3.112s)
remote: - Running scripts
remote:   - No build scripts found
remote: - Configuring default processes
remote:   - Skipping default web process (Procfile detected)
remote: - Done (finished in 3.372s)
remote:
remote: [Discovering process types]
remote: Procfile declares types -> web
remote: Reusing layers from image 'young-brushlands-43107/builds@sha256:b5a697e2bd14a1f7349a8004e6d74c67d649238aae1c15f258c0d94b35dd6468'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launch.sbom'
remote: Added 1/1 app layer(s)
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launcher'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:config'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:process-types'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.lifecycle.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.build.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.project.metadata'
remote: Setting default process type 'web'
remote: Saving young-brushlands-43107/builds...
remote: *** Images (sha256:8eaf557ec11e093297c8b0e7fcccf666d1cb73845849229c240117cc3f355703):
remote:       young-brushlands-43107/builds:99d082a8-403e-493e-be5e-7301d2409208
remote: Reusing cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache'
remote: Uploading cache
remote: Launching...
remote: https://young-brushlands-43107-9e8f2a3b3661.herokuapp.com/ deployed to Heroku
remote: Verifying deploy... done.
To https://git.heroku.com/young-brushlands-43107.git
   8741bb5..7c7f94f  main -> main

Then visit it by running heroku open times.

Provision a Database

The sample app requires a database. Provision a Heroku Postgres database, an add-on available through the Elements Marketplace. Add-ons are cloud services that provide out-of-the-box additional services for your application, such as logging, monitoring, databases, and more.

$ heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:essential-0
Creating heroku-postgresql:essential-0 on young-brushlands-43107...
Creating heroku-postgresql:essential-0 on young-brushlands-43107... ~$0.007/hour (max $5/month)
Database should be available soon
postgresql-lively-35836 is being created in the background. The app will restart when complete...
Use heroku addons:info postgresql-lively-35836 to check creation progress
Use heroku addons:docs heroku-postgresql to view documentation

You can wait for the database to provision by running this command:

$ heroku pg:wait
Waiting for database postgresql-lively-35836... Provisioning
Waiting for database postgresql-lively-35836... Available

After that command exits, your Heroku app can access the Postgres database. The DATABASE_URL environment variable stores your credentials, which your app is configured to connect to. You can see all the add-ons provisioned with the addons command:

$ heroku addons

 Add-on                                      Plan        Price        Max price State
 ─────────────────────────────────────────── ─────────── ──────────── ───────── ───────
 heroku-postgresql (postgresql-lively-35836) essential-0 ~$0.007/hour $5/month  created
  └─ as DATABASE

The table above shows add-ons and the attachments to the current app (young-brushlands-43107) or other apps.

Use npm to add node-postgres to your dependencies.

$ npm install pg
added 13 packages, and audited 371 packages in 1s

44 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

Edit your index.js file to use this module to connect to the database specified in your DATABASE_URL environment variable. On line 4 of index.js, add:

const { Pool } = require('pg')

const pool = new Pool({
  connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
  ssl: {
    rejectUnauthorized: false
  }
})

Then, to execute a query against the database, add a new /db route that will return all rows in the test_table table. On line 38 of index.js, add:

app.get('/db', async (req, res) => {
  try {
    const client = await pool.connect()
    const result = await client.query('SELECT * FROM test_table')
    res.render('pages/db', {
      results: result ? result.rows : null
    })
    client.release()
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
    res.send("Error " + err);
  }
})

Now that we’re connecting to a database, we also want to make sure to release our pool of connections when the app shuts down. After line 62, add the following to the shutdown handler:

  pool.end().then(() => {
    console.log('PG pool closed')
  })

The index.js file should now look like this:

const express = require('express')
const path = require('path')
const cool = require('cool-ascii-faces')
const { Pool } = require('pg')

const pool = new Pool({
  connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
  ssl: {
    rejectUnauthorized: false
  }
})

const port = process.env.PORT || 5006

const app = express()

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')))
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'))
app.set('view engine', 'ejs')

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.render('pages/index')
})

app.get('/cool', (req, res) => {
  res.send(cool())
})

app.get('/times', (req, res) => {
  const times = process.env.TIMES || 5
  let result = ''
  for (i = 0; i < times; i++) {
    result += i + ' '
  }
  res.send(result)
})

app.get('/db', async (req, res) => {
  try {
    const client = await pool.connect()
    const result = await client.query('SELECT * FROM test_table')
    res.render('pages/db', {
      results: result ? result.rows : null
    })
    client.release()
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
    res.send("Error " + err);
  }
})

const server = app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on ${port}`)
})

process.on('SIGTERM', async () => {
  console.log('SIGTERM signal received: gracefully shutting down')
  if (server) {
    server.close(() => {
      console.log('HTTP server closed')
    })
  }
  pool.end().then(() => {
    console.log('PG pool closed')
  })
})

Add the modified files to the local Git repository.

$ git add .

Commit the changes to the repository.

$ git commit -m "Add /times route"
[main 8e5404c] Add /times route
 3 files changed, 166 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Deploy the changes to Heroku.

$ git push heroku main
remote: Updated 18 paths from 95b670b
remote: Compressing source files... done.
remote: Building source:
remote: Extracting source
remote: Restoring cache
remote: Restoring data for SBOM from previous image
remote: 3 of 6 buildpacks participating
remote: heroku/nodejs-engine      3.4.0
remote: heroku/nodejs-npm-install 3.4.0
remote: heroku/procfile           3.1.2
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:dist" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config" from app image
remote: Restoring metadata for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache" from cache
remote: Restoring data for "heroku/nodejs-engine:dist" from cache
remote: Restoring data for "heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache" from cache
remote:
remote: [Heroku Node.js Engine Buildpack]
remote:
remote: [Checking Node.js version]
remote: Detected Node.js version range: >=18.0.0 <19.0.0-0||>=20.0.0 <21.0.0-0||>=22.0.0 <23.0.0-0
remote: Resolved Node.js version: 22.12.0
remote:
remote: [Installing Node.js distribution]
remote: Reusing Node.js 22.12.0 (linux-arm64)
remote: Installing application metrics scripts
remote:
remote: # Heroku Node.js npm Install Buildpack
remote:
remote: - Installing node modules
remote:   - Using npm version `10.9.0`
remote:   - Restoring npm cache
remote:   - Configuring npm cache directory
remote:   - Running `npm ci "--production=false"`
remote:
remote:       npm warn config production Use `--omit=dev` instead.
remote:
remote:       added 369 packages, and audited 370 packages in 3s
remote:
remote:       44 packages are looking for funding
remote:         run `npm fund` for details
remote:
remote:       found 0 vulnerabilities
remote:
remote:   - Done (3.320s)
remote: - Running scripts
remote:   - No build scripts found
remote: - Configuring default processes
remote:   - Skipping default web process (Procfile detected)
remote: - Done (finished in 3.592s)
remote:
remote: [Discovering process types]
remote: Procfile declares types -> web
remote: Reusing layers from image 'young-brushlands-43107/builds@sha256:8eaf557ec11e093297c8b0e7fcccf666d1cb73845849229c240117cc3f355703'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:node_runtime_metrics'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:web_env'
remote: Reusing layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_runtime_config'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launch.sbom'
remote: Added 1/1 app layer(s)
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:launcher'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:config'
remote: Reusing layer 'buildpacksio/lifecycle:process-types'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.lifecycle.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.build.metadata'
remote: Adding label 'io.buildpacks.project.metadata'
remote: Setting default process type 'web'
remote: Saving young-brushlands-43107/builds...
remote: *** Images (sha256:22fac5b1ec500d2ea2e4e7e0638af73ea72269192dff95b8005b3b332694398d):
remote:       young-brushlands-43107/builds:6f46f3d2-6916-4895-af6b-8f37c6e5fed2
remote: Reusing cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-engine:dist'
remote: Adding cache layer 'heroku/nodejs-npm-install:npm_cache'
remote: Uploading cache
remote: Launching...
remote: https://young-brushlands-43107-9e8f2a3b3661.herokuapp.com/ deployed to Heroku
remote: Verifying deploy... done.
To https://git.heroku.com/young-brushlands-43107.git
   7c7f94f..8e5404c  main -> main

If you access /db, you receive an error because there’s no table in the database. Assuming that you have Postgres installed locally, use the heroku pg:psql command to connect to the remote database, create a table, and insert a row.

$ heroku pg:psql -c "create table test_table (id integer, name text); insert into test_table values (1, 'hello database');"
--> Connecting to postgresql-lively-35836
CREATE TABLE
INSERT 0 1

Now when you access your app’s /db route with heroku open db, you see something like:

Read more about Heroku PostgreSQL.

You can use a similar technique to install MongoDB or Redis add-ons.

Delete Your App

Remove the app from your account. We only charge you for the resources you used.

$ heroku apps:destroy

You can confirm that your app is gone with this command:

$ heroku apps --all

Next Steps

You now know how to configure and deploy a Node.js app, view logs, and start a console.

To learn more, see:

• How Heroku Works
• Preparing a Codebase for Heroku Deployment
• Heroku Node.js Documentation