Dead simple heroku flask app

Hi guys, it has been long time i built any app and host it on heroku. Today i was just trying to build a simple flask app and host it there. The tutorials which found on web were pretty complex and did more than what i needed. So with combination of few other articles, github repo, official guide and stackoverflow i could host it.

Here is a very simple guide which will help you get started with flask app on heroku :D

Step 1: Install flask

pip install flask 

Step 2: Build a simple flask app in your local and run it

from flask import Flask

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def index():return 'Hola! Linkedin <3'

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

Step 3: Run it!

python app.py

Open your favourite browser and check at https://locahost:5000/. You should see your app running.

Now that our app is running in our local environment lets deploy this to heroku.

Step 4: Signup for a free heroku account if you don't have one.

Step 5: Create your new app in heroku dashboard. The app name should be unique. Select the region

Step 6: Install heroku cli. Its pretty straight forward :P

Step 7: Login into your heroku account via heroku cli

heroku login

Enter your heroku account email and password

Step 8: Initialise your project

cd <My-Project>/
git init

Step 9: we need to tell the heroku git the name of the app which you created in Step 5. To do that

heroku git:remove -a <Your-App-Name-Here>

Step 9: Create a file called requirements.txt. Add the below contents

Jinja2==2.6
gunicorn==0.17.2
Flask==0.10.1
Werkzeug==0.10.4

Here we are adding gunicorn because Heroku does not provide web server.

Step 10: Create a file with name Procfile . Procfile is where you tell heroku what command to run once app is deployed

Note: Procfile does not have file extension, just file with name Procfile

Add the below content in your Procfile

web: gunicorn app:app

Now you are set to deploy the app to heroku

Step 11: git add all, git commit and do git push

git add *
git commit -m "inital commit"
git push heroku master

You can see the logs which will push your source code, download the dependencies and run the app.

Step 12: Open your app at <your-heroku-app-name>.heroku.com

Vola! your app should be running

Let me know in comments if this was helpful and if you require any help <3