This guide will help you understand our infrastructure stack and how we maintain our platforms. While, this is guide does not have exhaustive details for all operations, it could be used as a reference for your understanding of the systems.
Our codebase is continuously built, tested and deployed to **separate sets of infrastructure (Servers, Databases, CDNs, etc.)**. This involves three steps to be followed in sequence: First, new changes are merged into our primary development branch (`master`)changes in form of pull requests. Next, these changes are run through a series of automated tests. And finally, once the tests pass we release the changes (or update them if needed) to deployments on our infrastructure.
Typically, [`master`](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp/tree/master) (the default development branch) is merged into the [`production-staging`](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp/tree/production-staging) branch once a day and is released into an isolated infrastructure.
It is identical to our live production environment at `freeCodeCamp.org`, other than it using a separate set of databases, servers, web-proxies, etc. This isolation lets us test ongoing development and features in a "production" like scenario, without affecting regular users of freeCodeCamp.org's main platforms.
Once the developer team [`@freeCodeCamp/dev-team`](https://github.com/orgs/freeCodeCamp/teams/dev-team/members) is happy with the changes on the staging application, these changes are moved every few days to the [`production-current`](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp/tree/production-current) branch.
We employ various levels of integration and acceptance testing to check on the quality of the code. All our tests are done through software like [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.org/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp) and [Azure Pipelines](https://dev.azure.com/freeCodeCamp-org/freeCodeCamp).
We have unit tests for testing our challenge solutions, Server APIs and Client User interfaces. These help us test the integration between different components.
> Note: We are also in the process of writing end user tests which will help in replicating real world scenarios like updating an email or making a call to the API or third-party services.
Together these tests help in preventing issues from repeating themselves and ensure we do not introduce a bug while working on another bug or a feature.
We have configured continuous delivery software to push changes to our development and production servers. Once the changes are pushed to the protected release branches, these should trigger our build and release pipelines:
| Setup to build artifacts for deployments. | Setup to deploy artifacts to their destination servers. |
| [Go to builds](https://dev.azure.com/freeCodeCamp-org/freeCodeCamp/_build) | [Go to releases](https://dev.azure.com/freeCodeCamp-org/freeCodeCamp/_release) |
We recommend not pushing more than 3-4 builds to the development (`dot-dev-*`) pipelines within a day and not more than one within the hour. This is because our artifacts are quite large and would put a load on our servers when deploying.
Currently, only members on the developer team can push to the production branches. The changes to the `production-*` branches can land only via fast-forward merge to the [`upstream`](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp).
You will not be able to force push and if you have re-written the history in anyway these commands will error out. If they do, you may have done something incorrectly and you should just start over.
And that's it, this will automatically trigger a build on the build pipeline for the `production-staging` branch. Typically this takes ~20-25 minutes for the all the applications. Once the build is complete, it will save the artifacts as `.zip` files in a cold storage to be retrieved and used by the release pipeline.
The release pipeline automatically triggers itself when a fresh artifact is available from the connected build pipeline. For the staging applications this is completely automated and the artifacts are pushed to the client CDN servers and the API servers. They typically take ~15-20 mins for the client, and ~5 mins for the API servers to be available live.
The process is mostly the same as the staging applications, with a few extra checks in place. This is just to make sure, we do not break anything on freeCodeCamp.org which can see hundreds of users using it at any moment.
> ### DO NOT execute these commands until you have verified that everything is working on the staging application. You should not bypass or skip any testing on staging before proceeding further.
You will not be able to force push and if you have re-written the history in anyway these commands will error out. If they do, you may have done something incorrectly and you should just start over.
And that's it, this will automatically trigger a build on the build pipeline for the `production-current` branch. Typically this also takes ~20-25 minutes for the all the applications like previously.
But here are some additional steps that need to be followed by a freeCodeCamp.org Staff developer. To prevent any accidental pushed we have a couple of manual approval steps configured on the pipelines.
Once a build artifact is ready on the `production-current` branch, it will trigger a release on the release pipeline. Next, freeCodeCamp.org developer staff team will receive and email. They can approve the release or reject it. Approval or rejection depends on if changes were nicely working and tested on the staging application. Each approval lasts only for 4 hours to avoid queuing up. Post that limit it gets auto rejected.
Once one of the members approve a release, the pipeline will push the changes live to freeCodeCamp.org's production CDN servers and API servers. They typically take ~15-20 mins for the client, and ~5 mins for the API servers to be available live.
As a final step, a staff member will also manually click the publish deploy button on Netlify's deployment's dashboard.
For staff use:
| Approve Release | Publish or Rollback on Netlify |
| Check your email for a direct link or [Open this dashboard](https://dev.azure.com/freeCodeCamp-org/freeCodeCamp/_release?_a=releases&view=mine&definitionId=6) | [Open production deployments](https://app.netlify.com/sites/freecodecamp-org/deploys) |
| Travis CI | Unit Tests | [](https://travis-ci.org/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp) |
| Client | Production | [](https://dev.azure.com/freeCodeCamp-org/freeCodeCamp/_release) |
| API | Production | [](https://dev.azure.com/freeCodeCamp-org/freeCodeCamp/_release) |
## Early access and beta testing upcoming versions of freeCodeCamp.org's platform and curriculum
We welcome you to test these releases in a **"public beta testing"** mode and get early access to upcoming features to the platforms. Sometimes these features/changes are referred to as **next, beta, staging,** etc. interchangeably.
Your contributions via feedback and issue reports will help us in making the production platforms at `freeCodeCamp.org` more **resilient**, **consistent** and **stable** for everyone.
We thank you for reporting bugs that you encounter and help in making freeCodeCamp.org better. You rock!
## Identifying the upcoming version of platform
The domain name will be different than **`freeCodeCamp.org`**. Currently this public beta testing version is available at:
**The current version of the platform is always available at [`freeCodeCamp.org`](https://www.freecodecamp.org).**
The dev-team merges changes from the `production-staging` branch to `production-current` when they release changes. The top commit should be what you see live on the site. You can identify the exact version deployed by visiting the build and deployment logs available below in the status section.
**Users on the beta version will have a separate account from the production.** The beta version uses a physically separate database from production. This gives us the ability to prevent any accidental loss of data or modifications. The dev team may purge the database on this beta version as needed.
- #### There are no guarantees on the uptime and reliability of the beta applications.
Deployment is expected to be frequent and in rapid iterations, sometimes multiple times a day. As a result there will be unexpected downtime at times or broken functionality on the beta version. The dev team will usually notify for updates in the [Contributors Chat room](https://gitter.im/FreeCodeCamp/Contributors).
- #### Do not send regular users to this site as a measure of confirming a fix
The beta site is and always has been to augment local development and testing, nothing else. It's not a promise of what’s coming, but a glimpse of what is being worked upon.
- #### Sign in and authentication only available via email, not social.
Google, GitHub and Facebook logins will NOT be available in this beta mode. This is simply a technical limitation, because we are using a separate `test domain` for this version. **Email logins will work just as fine.**
The sign page may look different than production (as a measure to isolate the development and the production databases.)
## Reporting issues and leaving feedback
Please open fresh issues for discussions and reporting bugs. You can label them as **[`release: next/beta`](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp/labels/release%3A%20next%2Fbeta)** for triage.
You may send an email to `dev@freecodecamp.org` if you have any queries. As always all security vulnerabilities should be reported to `security@freecodecamp.org` instead of the public tracker and forum.
