Set up CD pipeline

[simonwiles]

I'm not sure how much to do here: one the one hand a fully automated system with a staging deploy would be cool, and might be fun; on the other, it would be easier and simpler to just do manual deploys...

[mbingenheimer]

I think considering the scale of this project and the intended participants we are good with manual updates to data and then manually pumping that on. I should be able to learn that? So you would only get notified if something went wrong.

…

On Tue, Aug 15, 2023, 11:03 Simon Wiles ***@***.***> wrote: I'm not sure how much to do here: one the one hand a fully automated system with a staging deploy would be cool, and might be fun; on the other, it would be easier and simpler to just do manual deploys... — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#6>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACPUBNUFTQWLXULM45565SDXVLRGRANCNFSM6AAAAAA3QQU7RQ> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[simonwiles]

Thanks yeah -- so the actual build process will be scripted (the beginning of that is already done at bin/gh-deploy.sh), and that will fetch the additional needed repositories and build and publish the site. It can be set up as a button on the GitHub interface for use by those with appropriate permissions. It's common in many project to have that happen automatically when commits are made to a special branch -- either just the main branch (with development work happening in feature/fix branches) or in a special production branch or similar.

The situation here is complicated by two things: 1) our rebuilds are going to be necessitated more by new commits in other repos; and 2) I would like to make it possible for folks to be able to preview the changes they have made (i.e. check it all works) before deploying to the production site.

With manual deploys we wouldn't need to worry about (1) (and it's a relatively straightforwardly surmountable obstacle anyway, if needs be). For (2), on my own I would probably just build and test the site locally before deploying -- but that's a more involved undertaking that I wouldn't necessarily want to put on others, so I was imagining an automatic build to, e.g., staging.nanyang-data.info or preview.nanyang-data.info whenever data or content is updated to make it easier for folks to preview changes. Perhaps not necessary 🤷?