Understanding Stack Outputs

We’ve created some resources. Now, let’s see how we can use outputs outside of Pulumi. In this part, we’re going to explore stack outputs. Stack outputs are, as you might guess, the values exported from any given stack. These values are shown during an update, can be retrieved with the Pulumi CLI, and are displayed in the Pulumi Service once you’ve exported them. Example values include resource IDs, computed IP addresses, and DNS names. They’re extremely useful when you want to run commands with the CLI that reference those values. Note, though, that stack outputs are for the current stack only. If you want to get values from another stack, you want to use stack references, which bridge different stacks through inter-stack dependencies.

Typically, you will pass some value from your resources into the output, but to illustrate how stack outputs work, we will set some stack outputs manually:

At the end of the index.js index.ts __main__.py main.go Program.cs Program.fs Program.vb App.java Pulumi.yaml file of my-first-app, add the following line:

export const url = pulumi.interpolate`http://localhost:${frontendPort}`;

pulumi.export("url", pulumi.format("http://localhost:{0}", frontend_port))

ctx.Export("url", pulumi.Sprintf("http://localhost:%v", frontendPort))

Note that you’ll want to insert this just before the last return nil statement.

return new Dictionary<string, object?>
{
    ["url"] = Output.Format($"http://localhost:{frontendPort}")
};

Add this return statement to the end of the deployment function.

outputs:
  url: http://localhost:${frontendPort}

Replace the existing outputs: {} line with this code.

Now, run pulumi up -y

$ pulumi up

Previewing update (dev)

View Live: https://app.pulumi.com/***/my-first-app/dev/previews/...
...

Updating (dev)

View Live: https://app.pulumi.com/***/my-first-app/dev/updates/3
...

    pulumi:pulumi:Stack my-first-app-dev running
    pulumi:pulumi:Stack my-first-app-dev

Outputs:
    url: "http://localhost:3001"
...

Notice that there is now a stack output for the value of the key url.

We can also get this value by running pulumi stack output <key> on any particular stack.

$ pulumi stack output url
http://localhost:3001

And we can use this in the curl command to check our website:

$ curl $(pulumi stack output url)

Making a stack configurable

One of the main reasons to use stacks is to have different configurations between them. In this example, we will set a configuration that varies between our dev and staging stacks and set it programmatically.

First, we need to define the configuration. We have already set this in the dev stack in the Fundamentals tutorial. Let’s take a look! Make sure the dev stack is active:

$ pulumi stack select dev

Now, run the following command to get the values for this stack’s configuration:

$ pulumi config
KEY              VALUE
backendPort      3000
database         cart
frontendPort     3001
mongoHost        mongodb://mongo:27017
mongoPort        27017
nodeEnvironment  development
protocol         http://

Let’s set the configuration for the staging stack. We’ll use the same values as dev, except the frontendPort will be set to 3002.

$ pulumi stack select staging

$ pulumi config set frontendPort 3002
$ pulumi config set backendPort 3000
$ pulumi config set mongoPort 27017
$ pulumi config set mongoHost mongodb://mongo:27017
$ pulumi config set database cart
$ pulumi config set nodeEnvironment development
$ pulumi config set protocol http://

You should have two new files in your directory now: Pulumi.dev.yaml and Pulumi.staging.yaml. If you take a look at them, you’ll see each one has the value for frontendPort set (along with some other values we set in the Fundamentals tutorial):

$ cat Pulumi.staging.yaml

config:
  my-first-app:backendPort: "3000"
  my-first-app:database: cart
  my-first-app:frontendPort: "3002"
  my-first-app:mongoHost: mongodb://mongo:27017
  my-first-app:mongoPort: "27017"
  my-first-app:nodeEnvironment: development
  my-first-app:protocol: http://

$ pulumi config
KEY               VALUE
backend_port      3000
database          cart
frontend_port     3001
mongo_host        mongodb://mongo:27017
mongo_port        27017
node_environment  development
protocol          http://

Let’s set the configuration for the staging stack. We’ll use the same values as dev, except the frontend_port will be set to 3002.

$ pulumi stack select staging

$ pulumi config set frontend_port 3002
$ pulumi config set backend_port 3000
$ pulumi config set mongo_port 27017
$ pulumi config set mongo_host mongodb://mongo:27017
$ pulumi config set database cart
$ pulumi config set node_environment development
$ pulumi config set protocol http://

You should have two new files in your directory now: Pulumi.dev.yaml and Pulumi.staging.yaml. If you take a look at them, you’ll see each one has the value for frontend_port set (along with some other values we set in the Fundamentals tutorial):

$ cat Pulumi.staging.yaml

config:
  my-first-app:backend_port: "3000"
  my-first-app:database: cart
  my-first-app:frontend_port: "3002"
  my-first-app:mongo_host: mongodb://mongo:27017
  my-first-app:mongo_port: "27017"
  my-first-app:node_environment: development
  my-first-app:protocol: http://

$ pulumi config
KEY              VALUE
backendPort      3000
database         cart
frontendPort     3001
mongoHost        mongodb://mongo:27017
mongoPort        27017
nodeEnvironment  development
protocol         http://

Let’s set the configuration for the staging stack. We’ll use the same values as dev, except the frontendPort will be set to 3002.

$ pulumi stack select staging

$ pulumi config set frontendPort 3002
$ pulumi config set backendPort 3000
$ pulumi config set mongoPort 27017
$ pulumi config set mongoHost mongodb://mongo:27017
$ pulumi config set database cart
$ pulumi config set nodeEnvironment development
$ pulumi config set protocol http://

$ cat Pulumi.staging.yaml

config:
  my-first-app:backendPort: "3000"
  my-first-app:database: cart
  my-first-app:frontendPort: "3002"
  my-first-app:mongoHost: mongodb://mongo:27017
  my-first-app:mongoPort: "27017"
  my-first-app:nodeEnvironment: development
  my-first-app:protocol: http://

$ pulumi config
KEY              VALUE
backendPort      3000
database         cart
frontendPort     3001
mongoHost        mongodb://mongo:27017
mongoPort        27017
nodeEnvironment  development
protocol         http://

Let’s set the configuration for the staging stack. We’ll use the same values as dev, except the frontendPort will be set to 3002.

$ pulumi stack select staging

$ pulumi config set frontendPort 3002
$ pulumi config set backendPort 3000
$ pulumi config set mongoPort 27017
$ pulumi config set mongoHost mongodb://mongo:27017
$ pulumi config set database cart
$ pulumi config set nodeEnvironment development
$ pulumi config set protocol http://

$ cat Pulumi.staging.yaml

config:
  my-first-app:backendPort: "3000"
  my-first-app:database: cart
  my-first-app:frontendPort: "3002"
  my-first-app:mongoHost: mongodb://mongo:27017
  my-first-app:mongoPort: "27017"
  my-first-app:nodeEnvironment: development
  my-first-app:protocol: http://

Now, if you run pulumi up while in the staging stack, we should see that the frontend port is now set to 3002:

$ pulumi stack output url
http://localhost:3002

Next up, we’ll explore how to share outputs with other stacks. Let’s go!

Next Tutorial: Understanding Stack References →