How to tell prefect docker server where prefect.toml is

[pro-jasonnagy]

I am trying to run a prefect server in docker but I am unsure how to verify what prefect.toml is being used. I have make a customized toml on my host machine but I am unsure if I can feed it into my docker container or if I need to provide information to it some other way.

[bdalpe]

You'll want to mount your prefect.toml from your host container, then set PREFECT_PROFILES_PATH environment variable to the path inside the container.

[apoorva-01]

Quick heads up: PREFECT_PROFILES_PATH points at your profiles.toml (the ~/.prefect/profiles.toml file), not prefect.toml. They're two different files, so that env var won't get your prefect.toml picked up.

prefect.toml is discovered from the current working directory of the process. So in Docker the fix is to mount your file into whatever directory the server actually starts in (your WORKDIR) and Prefect loads it automatically. No env var needed to point at it.

WORKDIR /app

docker run -v $(pwd)/prefect.toml:/app/prefect.toml ... prefect server start

To confirm what's actually being applied, prefect config view --show-sources will tell you which setting came from which file.

Honestly though, if it's just a handful of settings, the easiest thing in a container is to skip the file and set them as PREFECT_* env vars directly. Env vars sit at the top of the precedence order (above prefect.toml), so nothing to mount and nothing to get out of sync.