# Building an Action Server Image

If you build an image that includes your action code and store it in a container registry, you can run it as part of your deployment, without having to move code between servers. In addition, you can add any additional dependencies of systems or Python libraries that are part of your action code but not included in the base `rasa/rasa-sdk` image.

## Manually Building an Action Server

To create your image:

1. Make sure your actions are defined in `actions/actions.py`. The `rasa/rasa-sdk` image will automatically look for the actions in this file.
2. If your actions have any extra dependencies, create a list of them in a file, `actions/requirements-actions.txt`.
3. Create a file named `Dockerfile` in your project directory, in which you'll extend the official SDK image, copy over your code, and add any custom dependencies (if necessary).

```docker
# Extend the official Rasa SDK image
FROM rasa/rasa-sdk:latest

# Use subdirectory as working directory
WORKDIR /app

# Copy any additional custom requirements, if necessary (uncomment next line)
# COPY actions/requirements-actions.txt ./

# Change back to root user to install dependencies
USER root

# Install extra requirements for actions code, if necessary (uncomment next line)
# RUN pip install -r requirements-actions.txt

# Copy actions folder to working directory
COPY ./actions /app/actions

# By best practices, don't run the code with root user
USER 1001
```

You can then build the image via the following command:

```bash
docker build . -t <account_username>/<repository_name>:<custom_image_tag>
```

The `<custom_image_tag>` should reference how this image will be different from others. For example, you could version or date your tags, as well as create different tags that have different code for production and development servers. You should create a new tag any time you update your code and want to re-deploy it.

## Using your Custom Action Server Image

If you're building this image to make it available from another server, you should push the image to a cloud repository.

This documentation assumes you are pushing your images to [DockerHub](https://hub.docker.com/). DockerHub will let you host multiple public repositories and one private repository for free. Be sure to first [create an account](https://hub.docker.com/signup/) and [create a repository](https://hub.docker.com/signup/) to store your images. You could also push images to a different Docker registry, such as [Google Container Registry](https://cloud.google.com/container-registry), [Amazon Elastic Container Registry](https://aws.amazon.com/ecr/), or [Azure Container Registry](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/container-registry/).

You can push the image to DockerHub via:

```bash
docker login --username <account_username> --password <account_password>
docker push <account_username>/<repository_name>:<custom_image_tag>
```

To authenticate and push images to a different container registry, please refer to the documentation of your chosen container registry.

# Deploy an Action Server with Rasa Pro Helm Chart

To run a custom action server you need a Docker image for your action server. Please see [Building an Action Server Image](/content/docs/reference/integrations/action-server/deploy-action-server/#building-an-action-server-image/index.html) for more information.

## Update values.yml

Update your **values.yml** file with the image and tag you want to use:

```yaml
rasa:
  endpoints:
    action_endpoint:
        url: http://rasa-action-server:5055/webhook

actionServer:
  enabled: true
  image:
    repository: <account_username>/<repository_name>
    tag: <custom_image_tag>
```

## Deploy with Helm

To update the helm deployment, you can use:

```bash
helm upgrade \
    --namespace <your namespace> \
    --values values.yml \
    <release name> \
    rasa-<version>.tgz
```

## Environment Variables

All available environment variables for the Rasa Action Server can be found [here](/content/docs/reference/config/environment-variables/#rasa-sdk/index.html).