Our tools are optimized for the far and away most common user: small groups without specialized IT to manage container orchestration.
The necessary parts are available though if y’all need to go Full Cloud. The source repository to look at is:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker
The samples/web_only.yml file therein shows how to use external resources.
The launcher script is also capable of building a custom docker image with the bootstrap subcommand.