Apply for qualified teacher status

A service that allows international teachers to apply for qualified teacher status (QTS) in England.

Environments

Links

Name	URL
Production	apply-for-qts-in-england.education.gov.uk
Pre-production	preprod.apply-for-qts-in-england.education.gov.uk
Test	test.apply-for-qts-in-england.education.gov.uk
Development	dev.apply-for-qts-in-england.education.gov.uk

Details and configuration

Name	Description	Notify API key
Production	Public site	Live
Pre-production	For internal use by DfE to test deploys	Live
Test	For external use by 3rd parties to run audits	Live
Development	For internal use by DfE for testing	Test

Dependencies

• Ruby 3.x
• Node.js 16.x
• Yarn 1.22.x
• PostgreSQL 14.x
• Redis 7.x
• Terraform 1.5.x
• Kubectl 1.27.x

How the application works

Apply for Qualified Teacher Status is a monolithic Rails app built with the GOV.UK Design System and hosted on Azure AKS.

We keep track of architecture decisions in Architecture Decision Records (ADRs).

We use rladr to generate the boilerplate for new records:

bin/bundle exec rladr new title

Setup

Dependencies

Install dependencies using your preferred method, using asdf or rbenv or nvm. Example with asdf:

# The first time
brew install asdf # Mac-specific
asdf plugin add ruby
asdf plugin add postgres # Unless you are managing postgres yourself
asdf plugin add nodejs
asdf plugin add yarn
asdf plugin add terraform
asdf plugin add azure-cli
asdf plugin add kubectl

# To install (or update, following a change to .tool-versions)
asdf install

VIPS

You’ll need to install lipvips. This varies on each operating system, but on macOS you can try this:

brew install libvips

PostgreSQL

You’ll need to install PostgreSQL. This can be installed via asdf, otherwise the way to do this is different on each operating system.

On macOS you can try the following:

brew install postgresql

If installed via asdf, start postgres database service if installed:

pg_ctl start

Set up the postgres user if it doesn't exist:

createdb default
psql -d default
> CREATE ROLE postgres LOGIN SUPERUSER;

Redis

You’ll need to install Redis. The way to do this is different on each operating system, but on macOS you can try the following:

brew install redis
brew services start redis

If installing Redis manually, you'll need to start it in a separate terminal:

redis-server

Application

Setup the project (re-run after Gemfile or package.json updates, automatically restarts any running Rails server):

bin/setup

Generate fake application forms and staff. For development and non-production environments we have a script that generates useful fake data.

bundle exec rake fake_data:generate

To enable the 'personas' feature, from the rails console

FeatureFlags::FeatureFlag.activate(:personas)

Navigate to /personas for persona based logins.

Run the application on http://localhost:3000:

bin/dev

BigQuery

Edit .env.local and add a BigQuery key if you want to use BigQuery locally.

Set BIGQUERY_DISABLE to false as it defaults to true in the development environment.

Read more about setting up BigQuery.

Linting

To run the linters:

bin/lint

Testing

To run the tests:

bin/test

Licence

MIT Licence.