Boosting Frappe: app release management accross multi-deployment

Release Management

Developer Requirement

multi-app-releases

Developer Alice wants to release a specific code state of the Agency app in the bench.
Developer Bob wants to release a specific code state of the Booking app in the bench.
Developer Charlie wants to release a specific code state of the Contracts app in the bench.

Problem

As the final bench is built with branches for specific environment, All the code travels in sync using branches.
Path of the code bench can assume predev -> functional -> predev -> dev -> staging -> main.

Proposed Solutions

git tag the version and use version tags instead of branches to pull code. If tags are auto-created and git admins can cleanup tags then tag is not under assured control of infrastructure team.
- Simple to setup and use.
- Use it in case you trust the tags are not going to be deleted any time.
Archive and push to object storage the version of app as a build pipeline. It will create a tar.gz archive of the app, add a build / version / tag to it and push it to S3 or any assets storage like how github releases do e.g. https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/packaging/releases. Use these archives during builds and COPY them into image. RUN bench setup requirements && bench build --production will set it up as part of bench image.
- Use it when you cannot trust git tags.
- It is difficult to setup and needs an storage location or an object storage like S3.
Package version into container image and push it to container registry. These images will be use to archive versions and then retrieve in Dockerfile using COPY --from=<image-name>. RUN bench setup requirements && bench build --production will set it up as part of bench image.
- Use it when you cannot trust git tags and additional object storage cannot be provisioned.
- Difficult compared to git tags. It is similar to archiving on object storage.

About the author

Prafful Suthar writes for Scalix on enterprise platforms, high-throughput systems, and ERP delivery. Scalix builds and migrates mission-critical software for regulated and scale-heavy organizations from Mumbai and remote-first teams. See our case studies for problem–solution–result write-ups, or contact us about your roadmap.

Release Management

Developer Requirement

Developer Alice wants to release a specific code state of the Agency app in the bench.

Developer Bob wants to release a specific code state of the Booking app in the bench.

Developer Charlie wants to release a specific code state of the Contracts app in the bench.

Problem

As the final bench is built with branches for specific environment, All the code travels in sync using branches.

Path of the code bench can assume predev -> functional -> predev -> dev -> staging -> main.

Proposed Solutions

git tag the version and use version tags instead of branches to pull code. If tags are auto-created and git admins can cleanup tags then tag is not under assured control of infrastructure team.

Simple to setup and use.
Use it in case you trust the tags are not going to be deleted any time.

Archive and push to object storage the version of app as a build pipeline. It will create a tar.gz archive of the app, add a build / version / tag to it and push it to S3 or any assets storage like how github releases do e.g. https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/packaging/releases. Use these archives during builds and COPY them into image. RUN bench setup requirements && bench build --production will set it up as part of bench image.

Use it when you cannot trust git tags.
It is difficult to setup and needs an storage location or an object storage like S3.

Package version into container image and push it to container registry. These images will be use to archive versions and then retrieve in Dockerfile using COPY --from=<image-name>. RUN bench setup requirements && bench build --production will set it up as part of bench image.

Use it when you cannot trust git tags and additional object storage cannot be provisioned.
Difficult compared to git tags. It is similar to archiving on object storage.

About the author