Question

I have a Node.js app which I’m attempting to deploy to Heroku. However, Heroku seems to think that it’s a Ruby app, likely because it has a Gemfile (we have a private gem containing some custom scripts and the like, as well as the Heroku gem itself for command-line control). I added Gemfile and Gemfile.lock to the .slugignore (discussed in Heroku’s Slug Compiler article), but the app is still detected as a Ruby app.

$ git push heroku master
Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)

-----> Heroku receiving push
-----> Ruby app detected
-----> Installing dependencies using Bundler version 1.2.0.pre
       Running: bundle install --without development:test --path vendor/bundle --binstubs bin/ --deployment

The bundle fails, because our custom gem is a private repo, and I never get any further. I’m unable to find any way to force Heroku to treat the app as a Node.js app and use the Procfile to start the web app. Does anyone have and idea how I can do this?

Answer 1

Well crap, I must not have looked far enough. This was already asked on Stack Overflow and the answer was to use the custom Node.js build pack, a la:

heroku config:add BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-nodejs.git