Generative AI is a fantastic tool to use to quickly create images based on prompts.

One of the issues with some of these platforms is that they don’t actually store the images in a way that makes them easier to retrieve after they’ve been created. Oftentimes you have to make sure to save it immediately after the process is completed, otherwise, it's gone. Luckily, Stability offers an API that can be used to programmatically generate images, and Tigris is the perfect solution to store those images for retrieval.

In this article, you’ll learn how to deploy an app to [Fly.io](http://fly.io/) that will allow you to generate images using the Stability API and automatically store them in a Tigris bucket.

## The Stability AI Tigris Database

Let’s take a look at what you’ll be deploying. There are several key components of the project:

- A Next.js app that the user interacts with
- An API endpoint (which is part of the Next app) that processes jobs.
- A background job that periodically polls for new jobs.
- A Postgres database to store jobs
- A Tigris bucket to store the generated images.

### The Next.js app

The first part of the project is a Next.js project that contains a single page that users will interact with. There is a simple form that accepts a prompt and image dimensions. This form uses server actions to store the request in the `jobs` table of a Fly Postgres database. Each grid item will periodically poll the table to check on the execution status of each job.

### The API processing endpoint

The Next project also contains a single API endpoint that is used to execute jobs against the Stability API before storing the results in a Tigris bucket. This allows for a queue-like structure where jobs can be processed asynchronously.

This endpoint does much of the heavy lifting to make this app possible. Let’s step through what happens when it’s called.

It will start by checking to see if there are any jobs with a status of `pending (0)`:

```jsx
let res = await db

.select()

.from(jobs)

.where(eq(jobs.status, 0))

.limit(1)

.execute();
```

If a job is found, the status is set to `in progress (1)`. This prevents other executions from processing a job twice.

```jsx
await db.update(jobs).set({ status: 1 }).where(eq(jobs.id, job.id)).execute();
```

Next, the prompt and image dimensions are sent to the Stability API for generating an image. The base64 encoded image is returned in the response from Stability.

```jsx
const engineId = "stable-diffusion-v1-6";

const apiHost = process.env.API_HOST ?? "https://api.stability.ai";

// Request an image from Stability

const stabilityRes = await fetch(

`${apiHost}/v1/generation/${engineId}/text-to-image`,

{
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
      Accept: "application/json",
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.STABILITY_API_KEY}`,
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      text_prompts: [
        {
          text: job.prompt,
        },
      ],
      cfg_scale: 7,
      height: job.height,
      width: job.width,
      steps: 30,
      samples: 1,
    }),
  }
);

let rb = await stabilityRes.json();

if (!rb.artifacts) {
  throw new Error(`${rb.name} -- ${rb.message} -- ${rb.details}`);
}
```

Then we can take that image and upload it to Tigris using the AWS SDK before setting the job to `done (2`.

```jsx
let artifact = rb.artifacts[0];

if (artifact.finishReason == "SUCCESS") {

let imgdata = artifact.base64;

var buf = Buffer.from(imgdata, "base64");

const upload = new Upload({

params: {
      Bucket: process.env.BUCKET_NAME,
      Key: `${job.id}.png`,
      Body: buf,
    },
    client: S3,
    queueSize: 3,
  });

// Upload the file to Tigris

await upload.done();

await db.update(jobs).set({ status: 2 }).where(eq(jobs.id, job.id)).execute();

}
```

### The background job

Using `node-cron`, a simple background job is used to poll the API endpoint from the Next.js app. When polled, that endpoint will handle the next job in the list. This is run as a secondary process in Fly using `concurrently` to avoid needing unnecessary infrastructure, keeping the project isolated to a single container. The following diagram demonstrates what’s performed in the background job:

1. The background job polls the API endpoint in Next regularly.
2. When a job is detected, the API will set the status to `in progress`.
3. Next will then dispatch a message to the Stability API, which will respond with a base64 encoded image when processing is complete.
4. That image will be stored in a Tigris bucket.
5. The database record is set to `complete`.

### Create a Stability API key

Before you can deploy the application, you’ll need to create an API key that will allow you to programmatically generate images using the Stability API. Start by heading to [https://platform.stability.ai](https://platform.stability.ai/) and create an account.

Once your account is created, you’ll be able to access your profile where you can create an API key. To do this, click on your avatar in the upper right.

Then click the **Create API Key** button.

Take note of the API key that is generated as you’ll need it in a later step.

## Deploy to [Fly.io](http://fly.io/)

Start the deployment process by cloning the repository to your computer. Open a terminal and run the following command to do so:

```bash
git clone https://github.com/bmorrisondev/sd-tigris-database.git
```

Navigate into the `sd-tigris-database` directory. Since all apps on [Fly.io](http://fly.io/) require globally unique names, you’ll need to customize the name of the app in the `fly.toml` file. You can set it to something manually, or you can run the following command to automatically customize the name:

```yaml
npm install node rename.mjs

## Output:

## App name changed to sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc
```

Next, run the following to deploy the application and database to Fly.io:

```yaml
fly launch
```

Since a `fly.toml` is stored with the repository, it should contain all of the necessary configurations to launch the app. When asked if you want to copy the configuration, type `y` to do so.

Next, you’ll be asked to review the app that will be launched:

```yaml
Organization:

YOUR ORGANIZATION                                                    (fly

launch defaults to the personal org)

Name:

sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc                                        (from

your fly.toml)

Region:

Ashburn, Virginia (US)                                               (from

your fly.toml)

App Machines:

shared-cpu-1x, 1GB RAM                                               (from

your fly.toml)

Postgres:

(Fly Postgres) 1 Node, shared-cpu-1x, 256MB RAM (1GB RAM), 10GB disk
  (determined from app source)

Redis:

<none>                                                               (not

requested)

Sentry:

false                                                                (not

requested)
```

When asked if you want to tweak the settings, type `n` to proceed. The main part of your app will start deploying. Wait until the deployment is finished and take note of the URL at the end:

```bash
Visit your newly deployed app at https://sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc.fly.dev/
```

### Configure the Postgres database

A Postgres database will be configured as part of the deployment, but you’ll need to create the schema for the application before it will function properly. This will be done using `drizzle-kit` and the provided `schema.ts` file.

Scroll up through the output of the deployment and locate the value for `DATABASE_URL`. It should look something like this:

```bash
DATABASE_URL=postgres://sd_tigris_database_65b013f6fc:Eb2tnGHch9m9u90@sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc-db.flycast:5432/sd_tigris_database_65b013f6fc?sslmode=disable
```

As it is now, this connection string won’t work locally, but we can tweak it a bit before configuring a proxy using the [Fly.io](http://fly.io/) CLI tool. Create a file in the root of the project named `.env.local` and paste the connection string in it. Replace the hostname with `127.0.0.1`. It should look similar to this, but with different credentials:

```bash
DATABASE_URL=postgres://sd_tigris_database_65b013f6fc:Eb2tnGHch9m9u90@127.0.0.1:5432/sd_tigris_database_65b013f6fc?sslmode=disable
```

In the terminal, run `fly apps ls` to get a list of your applications. Take note of the name ending in `-db` as this is the app that is the Postgres cluster you’ll need to create the proxy to.

```bash
> fly app ls

NAME                                    OWNER           STATUS          LATEST DEPLOY

fly-builder-young-water-4407            personal        deployed

sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc           personal        suspended       8m31s ago

sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc-db        personal        deployed
```

Next, create a proxy using the following command, but replace the `sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc-db` with the name of your cluster:

```bash
fly proxy -a sd-tigris-database-65b013f6fc-db 5432
```

The `fly proxy` will prevent any further commands in that terminal window while it’s running, so open another terminal at the root of the project and run the following command to apply the schema changes:

```bash
npm run db:push
```

You should see a list of changes that will be made to the database, confirm these changes.

```bash
> sd-tigris-database@0.1.0 db:push

> drizzle-kit push:pg --config ./drizzle.config.ts

drizzle-kit: v0.20.14

drizzle-orm: v0.30.4

Custom config path was provided, using './drizzle.config.ts'

Reading config file '/Users/brian/Repos/sd-tigris-database/sd-tigris-database/drizzle.config.ts'

postgres://sd_tigris_database_65b013f6fc:Eb2tnGHch9m9u90@127.0.0.1:5432/sd_tigris_database_65b013f6fc?sslmode=disable

Warning  You are about to execute current statements:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS "jobs" (

"id" serial PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,

"prompt" text NOT NULL,

"height" integer DEFAULT 500 NOT NULL,

"width" integer DEFAULT 500 NOT NULL,

"status" integer DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,

"error" text,

"meta" json
);

No, abort

❯ Yes, I want to execute all statements
```

You can now close the proxy if needed.

### Configure the Tigris bucket

Next up, you’ll need to create the Tigris bucket that will be used to store the generated images. To do this, run the following command:

```bash
fly storage create
```

You can leave the prompt blank to generate a name automatically. This command will automatically update the environment variables of the app in Fly to use the bucket, meaning no further action is required.

### Add Stability Key environment variable

The last step is to use the Stability API key you generated earlier in this guide and set it as an environment variable in Fly. Once set, Fly will automatically restart the underlying containers so they receive the newest set of variables.

```bash
fly secrets set STABILITY_API_KEY={YOUR_KEY_HERE}
```

After adding the environment variables, you should be able to access the app using the URL you grabbed earlier.

## Conclusion

Creating AI-generated images and storing them is just one excellent use case for Tigris. To learn more about what Tigris can do, check out the [documentation portal](/content/docs/index.html) for a more complete list of features!