How to create variables in AWS and use them in an .env file for ECS deploy task

Question

One of my former workplaces used this kind of functionality. They had a production.env file in config folder and the docker image copied that production.env file into the container when deploying through Github tasks.

DATABASE_HOST=$DATABASE_HOST
DATABASE_PORT=$DATABASE_PORT
DATABASE_USERNAME=$DATABASE_USERNAME
DATABASE_PASSWORD=$DATABASE_PASSWORD
DATABASE_NAME=$DATABASE_NAME

It seems like they created these variables on AWS somehow, and used them directly in the production.env file. I can't find any references to this on google, as I'm not sure what to search.

Answer 1

You can inject individual name/value pairs or entire files via your ECS task definitions. See the documentation here - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/taskdef-envfiles.html

Alternatively if you need more detailed configuration management, you can inject environment variables from SSM Parameter Store and Secrets Manager in similar ways.