Google Cloud Run

Cloud Run runs containers with automatic scaling — including scale-to-zero. You pay only for actual request processing time.

Prerequisites

Google Cloud CLI (gcloud) installed and authenticated
A GCP project with billing enabled
A Dockerfile in your project

Quick deploy

The fastest path — Cloud Run builds and deploys from source:

# Enable APIs (once)
gcloud services enable run.googleapis.com cloudbuild.googleapis.com
 
# Deploy directly from source (Cloud Build handles the Dockerfile)
gcloud run deploy my-app \
  --source . \
  --port 3000 \
  --region us-central1 \
  --allow-unauthenticated

Cloud Run gives you an HTTPS URL like https://my-app-xxxxx-uc.a.run.app.

Deploy from Artifact Registry

For more control over your image:

# Create Artifact Registry repository (once)
gcloud artifacts repositories create my-repo \
  --repository-format=docker \
  --location=us-central1
 
# Build and push
gcloud builds submit \
  --tag us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/<project-id>/my-repo/my-app:latest
 
# Deploy the specific image
gcloud run deploy my-app \
  --image us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/<project-id>/my-repo/my-app:latest \
  --port 3000 \
  --region us-central1 \
  --allow-unauthenticated

Configuration

Environment variables

gcloud run services update my-app \
  --set-env-vars "RUST_LOG=info,APP_ENV=production" \
  --region us-central1

Secrets (via Secret Manager)

# Create a secret
echo -n "postgres://..." | gcloud secrets create db-url --data-file=-
 
# Mount as env var
gcloud run services update my-app \
  --set-secrets "DATABASE_URL=db-url:latest" \
  --region us-central1

Resource limits

gcloud run services update my-app \
  --memory 256Mi \
  --cpu 1 \
  --concurrency 250 \
  --timeout 60s \
  --region us-central1

Scaling

# Min/max instances
gcloud run services update my-app \
  --min-instances 0 \
  --max-instances 10 \
  --region us-central1

min-instances=0 enables scale-to-zero (cold starts ~300 ms for Rust)
min-instances=1 keeps one instance warm (avoids cold starts, ~$6/month)

Custom domain

# Map domain
gcloud run domain-mappings create \
  --service my-app \
  --domain api.example.com \
  --region us-central1

Then add the DNS records shown in the output. TLS is automatic.

VPC connectivity

Connect to Cloud SQL, Memorystore, or other VPC resources:

# Create a VPC connector (once)
gcloud compute networks vpc-access connectors create my-connector \
  --region us-central1 \
  --range 10.8.0.0/28
 
# Attach to Cloud Run
gcloud run services update my-app \
  --vpc-connector my-connector \
  --region us-central1

Cloud SQL

# Connect via Unix socket (recommended)
gcloud run services update my-app \
  --add-cloudsql-instances <project>:<region>:<instance> \
  --set-env-vars "DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@/db?host=/cloudsql/<project>:<region>:<instance>" \
  --region us-central1

CI/CD with GitHub Actions

name: Deploy to Cloud Run
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
 
env:
  PROJECT_ID: my-project
  REGION: us-central1
  SERVICE: my-app
 
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      id-token: write
 
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 
      - name: Authenticate to Google Cloud
        uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
        with:
          workload_identity_provider: projects/<num>/locations/global/workloadIdentityPools/github/providers/github
          service_account: deploy@${{ env.PROJECT_ID }}.iam.gserviceaccount.com
 
      - name: Deploy to Cloud Run
        uses: google-github-actions/deploy-cloudrun@v2
        with:
          service: ${{ env.SERVICE }}
          region: ${{ env.REGION }}
          source: .

Cost estimate

Scenario	Monthly cost
Scale-to-zero, 100k requests/month	~$0.50
1 instance always-on (0.5 vCPU, 256 MB)	~$6
5 instances peak, avg 2	~$30

Cloud Run charges per 100ms of actual processing + request count. Idle = free.

WebSocket support

Cloud Run supports WebSocket connections with automatic timeout handling. Set a longer request timeout for long-lived connections:

gcloud run services update my-app \
  --timeout 3600s \
  --region us-central1