Document POSTGRES_SEEDS (or better yet, use a descriptive var name)

[colelawrence]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. I have been very frustrated over the last two hours, because I haven't seen any documentation for how to actually customize the connection for my postgresql database.

I have finally realized after searching this codebase for POSTGRES_SEEDS that it is actually being used as "postgres connection host".

Describe the solution you'd like

I would strongly recommend rethinking the consistency of these environment variables, as it has lead me and to a great deal of confusion, or documenting all the docker-compose files with descriptions.

[jbreiding]

Thanks, we are going to track this under a larger project to reconcile all the different ways temporal can be configured to a simple, and documented path.

[gajus]

Unbelievable. @colelawrence This prob saved me hours of search 🤦

[fowlmouth]

In 2023 the best source for info about POSTGRES_SEEDS is still searching through the issues in github

[happyxhw]

In 2023 the best source for info about POSTGRES_SEEDS is still searching through the issues in github

[MysticalMount]

Ditto this, just realised myself but its not obvious at all

[jxc876]

I ran into the same thing in 2024,

I was super confused by POSTGRES_SEEDS I assumed it was some type of Seed for randomness.

I had to look through source code of several projects to find this:

        default:
            sql:
                pluginName: "{{ $db }}"
                databaseName: "{{ default .Env.DBNAME "temporal" }}"
                connectAddr: "{{ default .Env.POSTGRES_SEEDS "" }}:{{ default .Env.DB_PORT "5432" }}"
                
        visibility:
            sql:
                {{ $visibility_seeds_default := default .Env.POSTGRES_SEEDS "" }}
                {{ $visibility_seeds := default .Env.VISIBILITY_POSTGRES_SEEDS $visibility_seeds_default }}

                databaseName: "{{ default .Env.VISIBILITY_DBNAME "temporal_visibility" }}"
                connectAddr: "{{ $visibility_seeds }}:{{ $visibility_port }}"

• https://github.com/temporalio/temporal/blob/main/docker/config_template.yaml#L102

[MysticalMount]

The Helm chart does reveal it but you have to dig into the templates for the configmap