Automatic Deployment Script - Deploying to dokku automatically by tagging a PR

For proj-frontiers, the team has set up a Github Action so that if you put a dokku link in any PR description, and then add the special tag Dokku Deploy, a Github Action will run that deploys the branch for that PR on that Dokku Deployment.

In addition, it uses the relevant Github API so that the “Deployment” features of the PR are invoked; that is, you can scroll down and see the progress and status of the deployment right in the PR.

Example Screenshots

TODO

Maintance of Secrets

The workflow described above depends on certain secrets and scripts and credentials being configured properly. If the workflow stops working at some point, it may be that the credentials need to be updated.

  • GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT: A Google Service Account as part of a Google Cloud project is required for the spreadsheet to be automatically updated. The steps for creating one are here: https://docs.cloud.google.com/iam/docs/service-accounts-create#creating You will also need to create a secret key, which should then be added to the ucsb-cs156/workflows repository as GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT. You should be able to simply copy and paste the entire file into the secret. Additionally, the spreadsheet must be shared with the email of the service account – currently, the spreadsheet ID is simply hardcoded into the script.

Spreadsheet of Deployments

The proj-frontiers team also maintains a spreadsheet of dokku instances where PRs can be deployed, here (note that there isn’t necessarily public access to this spreadsheet):

The steps to deploy a PR are the following:

  1. Have a PR that you’d like to deploy to Dokku
  2. Go to the spreadsheet and identify the url of a dokku instance you’d like to deploy to, ie https://frontiers-qa2.dokku-00.cs.ucsb.edu/
  3. Place the dokku instance url somewhere in the description of your PR and save it.
  4. Apply the “Dokku Deploy” label
  5. The PR should deploy, and if completed successfully, will automatically update the “PR” Column on the spreadsheet.