Lesson 3: Cloud, putting BrightCart's API on the internet
19 min read·13 Oct 2026
Module 13 · Lesson 3 · About 45 minutes · Needs: Lesson 1 (the container image), Module 11 (PostgreSQL and Redis)
The situation
Lesson 1 ended with an image, brightcart-api:1.0, that answers GET /orders/5730 with Aisha Rahman's kettle. Dev wants it live. Marta asks: "Do we pay for servers at 3am?" Sam asks: "Where does the database password live?" Priya wants the help widget to load fast everywhere.
This lesson walks through one platform, Google Cloud Run, from its official docs. Every gcloud command is exact and marked "not run here". The Python parts are real: config, secrets, connection strings, and simulations of load balancing, autoscaling and a CDN.