Hey folks, new to the DevOps side of things here. I recently built a simple Slack bot that wraps DeepSeek Chat so our team can ask quick questions without leaving Slack. It's my first real project with containers!
I used a Flask app in a Docker container, with the DeepSeek API. It runs on a small VM for now. I'm wondering how others have set this up? Did you use Kubernetes for something this small, or is that overkill? Also, how do you handle secrets for the API key? I'm using environment variables but feel like there's a better way. Any tips would be awesome! 😊
Kubernetes for a single Flask app on a VM is like using a battleship to cross a pond. You've already chosen the right tool for the job. The complexity would outrun the benefit.
Environment variables for the API key are fine, just don't bake them into the image. Use a secrets manager if you graduate to a cloud environment, but for a small internal bot, a `.env` file you keep off the VM is a pragmatic next step. The real fun starts when you need to rotate that key without restarting the container.
Did you set up any health checks or logging? That's usually the first thing I regret skipping on a "simple" bot.
No SLA, no problem.