CI/CD Pipeline Overview

The deployment examples on this page are legacy and are not the current production implementation. Production server deployment is handled through Dokploy; verify frontend hosting and CI automation separately before using these examples.

Overview

Pipeline Architecture

┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│  Developer  │───▶│    GitHub   │───▶│   GitHub    │───▶│  Staging    │
│   Commit    │    │   Actions   │    │   Actions   │    │ Environment │
└─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘
         │               │                     │               │
         ▼               ▼                     ▼               ▼
┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│   Testing   │    │   Build     │    │  Security   │    │ Integration │
│   Stage     │    │   Stage     │    │   Scan      │    │   Tests     │
└─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘
                                                                 │
                                                                 ▼
┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│  Production │◀───│   Manual    │◀───│ Performance│◀───│   Approval  │
│ Environment │    │  Approval   │    │   Tests     │    │             │
└─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘

Pipeline Stages

1. Source Control

• Trigger: Push to main/develop branches, pull requests
• Actions:
  • Code checkout
  • Branch validation
  • Commit message validation
  • Pre-commit hooks execution

2. Testing Stage

• Unit Tests: Jest for frontend, pytest for backend
• Integration Tests: API endpoint testing
• E2E Tests: Playwright for critical user journeys
• Coverage: Minimum 80% code coverage required

3. Build Stage

• Frontend Build: TypeScript compilation, asset optimization
• Backend Build: Docker image creation
• Security Scanning: Snyk for dependency vulnerabilities
• Artifact Storage: Docker images pushed to registry

4. Staging Deployment

• Environment: Mirrors production setup
• Database: Isolated staging database
• Data: Anonymized production data
• Monitoring: Full monitoring stack enabled

5. Quality Gates

• Performance Tests: Load testing with k6
• Security Tests: Penetration testing
• Compliance Checks: GDPR, accessibility compliance
• Manual Review: QA team approval required

6. Production Deployment

• Strategy: Blue-green deployment
• Rollback: Automated rollback on failure
• Monitoring: Real-time health checks
• Notification: Team notifications on deployment status

Tools and Technologies

CI/CD Platform

• GitHub Actions: Primary CI/CD platform
• Workflows: YAML-based pipeline definitions
• Self-hosted Runners: For performance-intensive tasks

Containerization

• Docker: Application containerization
• Docker Compose: Local development environment
• Kubernetes: Production container orchestration

Testing Tools

• Jest: JavaScript/TypeScript unit testing
• Playwright: End-to-end testing
• k6: Performance and load testing
• Cypress: Component testing

Security Tools

• Snyk: Dependency vulnerability scanning
• SonarQube: Code quality analysis
• OWASP ZAP: Dynamic security testing

Monitoring Tools

• Prometheus: Metrics collection
• Grafana: Dashboard visualization
• ELK Stack: Log aggregation and analysis
• New Relic: Application performance monitoring

Environment Configuration

Development Environment

# .github/workflows/dev.yml
name: Development CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [ develop ]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: '18'
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test
      - name: Build application
        run: npm run build

Production Environment

# .github/workflows/prod.yml
name: Production CD
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: production
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Deploy to Self-Hosted Server via SSH
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@master
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SERVER_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          script: |
            cd /opt/learnille
            git pull origin main
            cd server && npm install && npm run build
            pm2 reload learnille-api --update-env

Deployment Strategies

Blue-Green Deployment

• Two identical production environments
• Traffic switched between blue and green
• Zero-downtime deployments
• Instant rollback capability

Canary Deployment

• Gradual traffic shift to new version
• Monitor metrics during rollout
• Automatic rollback on threshold breach
• A/B testing capabilities

Feature Flags

• Deploy code without exposing features
• Gradual feature rollout
• Emergency feature disabling
• A/B testing support

Quality Gates

Automated Gates

• Test Coverage: > 80%
• Security Scan: No critical vulnerabilities
• Performance: < 2s response time
• Code Quality: Grade A in SonarQube

Manual Gates

• Code Review: Required for all changes
• QA Approval: Manual testing sign-off
• Security Review: For sensitive changes
• Product Approval: Feature validation

Monitoring and Alerting

Pipeline Metrics

• Build success rate
• Deployment frequency
• Mean time to recovery
• Change failure rate

Application Metrics

• Response time
• Error rate
• Throughput
• Resource utilization

Alerting Rules

• Pipeline failures
• Deployment timeouts
• Performance degradation
• Security incidents

Rollback Procedures

Automated Rollback

• Health check failures trigger rollback
• Database migration failures
• Application startup failures
• Performance threshold breaches

Manual Rollback

• Emergency rollback button in dashboard
• Version selection for rollback target
• Database backup restoration
• Cache invalidation

Security Considerations

Pipeline Security

• Secret management with GitHub Secrets
• Dependency scanning
• Container image scanning
• Infrastructure as Code security

Access Control

• Branch protection rules
• Required reviews for production
• Environment-specific approvals
• Audit logging

Performance Optimization

Build Optimization

• Dependency caching
• Parallel job execution
• Incremental builds
• Artifact reuse

Deployment Optimization

• Image layer caching
• Rolling updates
• Health check optimization
• Resource optimization

Disaster Recovery

Backup Strategy

• Database backups every 6 hours
• Configuration backups daily
• Artifact storage with versioning
• Multi-region replication

Recovery Procedures

• Automated failover to backup region
• Database restoration from backups
• Application redeployment
• Data consistency verification

Continuous Improvement

Metrics Tracking

• Deployment frequency
• Lead time for changes
• Change failure rate
• Mean time to recovery

Process Optimization

• Regular pipeline reviews
• Tool upgrades
• Process documentation updates
• Team training and knowledge sharing