Scope types
A scope type defines what kind of infrastructure backs your deployment environment: how it's provisioned, how your application runs, and how traffic reaches it.
Nullplatform ships with built-in scope types that cover the most common deployment patterns.
Containers
The Containers scope type runs your application as Docker containers on Kubernetes. It's the default scope type and the right choice for web applications, APIs, microservices, and any long-running workload.
It supports multiple cloud providers (AWS EKS, Azure AKS, Azure ARO, Google Cloud GKE, Oracle Cloud OKE) and includes built-in support for autoscaling, blue-green deployments, health checks, and traffic routing.
Scheduled tasks
The Scheduled tasks scope type runs periodic jobs on Kubernetes using CronJobs. Use it for ETL pipelines, report generation, data cleanup, and any workload that runs on a schedule and exits.
It includes built-in support for cron scheduling, concurrency control, retries, and job history management.
Static files
The Static files scope deploys static file applications, such as single-page apps (SPAs), static websites, and front-end bundles. It provisions a CDN distribution, configures DNS, and manages deployments using OpenTofu.
It supports AWS (CloudFront, Route 53, and S3) and Azure (Azure CDN, Azure DNS, and Blob Storage), and can be extended to other providers.
Legacy scope types
Nullplatform also supports legacy scope types for existing workloads:
- Server instances (EC2): VM-based deployments with auto-scaling groups
- Serverless (AWS Lambda): serverless function deployments
These remain available for backward compatibility, but we recommend using the scope types above for new implementations.
Choosing a scope type
| Workload | Recommended type |
|---|---|
| Web apps, APIs, microservices | Containers |
| Scheduled tasks, batch jobs | Scheduled tasks |
| SPAs, static websites, front-end bundles | Static files |
| PL/SQL, on-prem, other custom workloads | Craft a scope from scratch |
| Existing EC2 or Lambda workloads | Legacy scopes |
Next steps
- Containers: deep dive into the default scope type
- Scheduled tasks: configure periodic jobs on Kubernetes
- Static files: deploy SPAs and static websites with CDN distribution
- Craft a scope from scratch: build your own scope type for workloads that don't fit the built-in types
- Legacy scopes: reference for existing EC2 and Lambda workloads