gcloud deploy with sqlite database without wiped out - sqlite

Question

I have an issue when I am trying to deploy an application to GCP which is using a sqlite database at the backend. My problem is that on each deployment the database is been wiped out and I can't find a way to make it permanent.
So assume that the database.sqlite is placed in api/db/database.sqlite. For the initial deployment is working fine as the database is created and placed in the /db folder. But when I deploy the app again the folder is wiped out and the database. I have also tried to placed it in a folder outside of the api folder (e.g /database in the root) but again the folder is wiped out.
I don't want to create/migrate the db on each build and pass it as an artifact to the deploy job.
// gitlab-ci.yaml
image: node:latest
stages:
- build
- deploy
build:
stage: build
script:
- yarn
- yarn test:api
- yarn test:ui
- yarn build
// this runs for the first time to create the db, then I remove it but the database is gone.
# - yarn db:migrate --env production
artifacts:
paths:
- api/dist/
// this runs for the first time to upload the db
// - api/db
- ui/dist/
expire_in: 1 day
deploy:
only:
- master
stage: deploy
image: google/cloud-sdk:alpine
dependencies:
- build
script:
- gcloud app deploy --project=PROJECT_ID ui-app.yaml api-app.yaml
// api-app.yaml
service: service-name
runtime: nodejs
env: flex
skip_files:
- node_modules/
- ui/
manual_scaling:
instances: 1
resources:
volumes:
- name: ramdisk1
volume_type: tmpfs
size_gb: 1
memory_gb: 6
disk_size_gb: 10
Ideally I need a folder in the instance somewhere which will not wiped out on each deployment. I am sure that I am missing something. Any ideas?

Answer 1

You simply can't! App engine, flex or standard, are serverless and stateless. Your volume type is explicit tmpfs "TeMPorary FileSystem".
App Engine Flex are at least restarted once a week for patching and update of the underlying server, and thus you will lost your database at least every week.
When you deploy a new version, a new instance is created from scratch, and thus your memory is empty when the instance start.
Serverless product are stateless. If you want to persist your data you need to store them outside of the serverless product. On a compute engine for example, and with a persistent disk, which is "persistent".
If you use an ORM, you can also easily switch from SQL Lite to MySQL or PostgreSQL. And thus leverage Cloud SQL managed database for your uses.