Enhancements: Using GitHub Actions to Deploy

Integrating a version control system into your development cycle is just kind of one of those things that you do, right? I use GutHub for my version control, and it’s GitHub Actions to help with my deployment process.

There are 3 yaml files I have to get my local code deployed to my production server:

django.yaml
dev.yaml
prod.yaml

Each one serving it’s own purpose

django.yaml

The django.yaml file is used to run my tests and other actions on a GitHub runner. It does this in 9 distinct steps and one Postgres service.

The steps are:

Set up Python 3.8 - setting up Python 3.8 on the docker image provided by GitHub
psycopg2 prerequisites - setting up psycopg2 to use the Postgres service created
graphviz prerequisites - setting up the requirements for graphviz which creates an image of the relationships between the various models
Install dependencies - installs all of my Python package requirements via pip
Run migrations - runs the migrations for the Django App
Load Fixtures - loads data into the database
Lint - runs black on my code
Flake8 - runs flake8 on my code
Run Tests - runs all of the tests to ensure they pass

name: Django CI

on:
  push:
    branches-ignore:
      - main
      - dev

jobs:

  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:12.2
        env:
          POSTGRES_USER: postgres
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
          POSTGRES_DB: github_actions
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
        # needed because the postgres container does not provide a healthcheck
        options: --health-cmd pg_isready --health-interval 10s --health-timeout 5s --health-retries 5

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Set up Python 3.8
      uses: actions/setup-python@v1
      with:
        python-version: 3.8
    - uses: actions/cache@v1
      with:
        path: ~/.cache/pip
        key: ${{ runner.os }}-pip-${{ hashFiles('**/requirements.txt') }}
        restore-keys: |
          ${{ runner.os }}-pip-
    - name: psycopg2 prerequisites
      run: sudo apt-get install python-dev libpq-dev
    - name: graphviz prerequisites
      run: sudo apt-get install graphviz libgraphviz-dev pkg-config
    - name: Install dependencies
      run: |
        python -m pip install --upgrade pip
        pip install psycopg2
        pip install -r requirements/local.txt
    - name: Run migrations
      run: python manage.py migrate
    - name: Load Fixtures
      run: |
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/User.json
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/Sport.json
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/League.json
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/Conference.json
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/Division.json
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/Venue.json
        python manage.py loaddata fixtures/Team.json
    - name: Lint
      run: black . --check
    - name: Flake8
      uses: cclauss/GitHub-Action-for-Flake8@v0.5.0
    - name: Run tests
      run: coverage run -m pytest

dev.yaml

The code here does essentially they same thing that is done in the deploy.sh in my earlier post Automating the Deployment except that it pulls code from my dev branch on GitHub onto the server. The other difference is that this is on my UAT server, not my production server, so if something goes off the rails, I don’t hose production.

name: Dev CI

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - dev

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04
    steps:
      - name: deploy code
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v0.1.2
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SSH_HOST_TEST }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_KEY_TEST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SSH_USERNAME }}

          script: |
            rm -rf StadiaTracker
            git clone --branch dev git@github.com:ryancheley/StadiaTracker.git

            source /home/stadiatracker/venv/bin/activate

            cd /home/stadiatracker/

            rm -rf /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker

            cp -r /root/StadiaTracker/ /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker

            cp /home/stadiatracker/.env /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/StadiaTracker/.env

            pip -q install -r /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/requirements.txt

            python /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/manage.py migrate

            mkdir /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/static
            mkdir /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/staticfiles

            python /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/manage.py collectstatic --noinput -v0

            systemctl daemon-reload
            systemctl restart stadiatracker

prod.yaml

Again, the code here does essentially they same thing that is done in the deploy.sh in my earlier post Automating the Deployment except that it pulls code from my main branch on GitHub onto the server.

name: Prod CI

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04
    steps:
      - name: deploy code
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v0.1.2
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SSH_HOST }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_KEY }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SSH_USERNAME }}

          script: |
            rm -rf StadiaTracker
            git clone git@github.com:ryancheley/StadiaTracker.git

            source /home/stadiatracker/venv/bin/activate

            cd /home/stadiatracker/

            rm -rf /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker

            cp -r /root/StadiaTracker/ /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker

            cp /home/stadiatracker/.env /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/StadiaTracker/.env

            pip -q install -r /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/requirements.txt

            python /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/manage.py migrate

            mkdir /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/static
            mkdir /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/staticfiles

            python /home/stadiatracker/StadiaTracker/manage.py collectstatic --noinput -v0

            systemctl daemon-reload
            systemctl restart stadiatracker

The general workflow is:

Create a branch on my local computer with git switch -c branch_name
Push the code changes to GitHub which kicks off the django.yaml workflow.
If everything passes then I do a pull request from branch_name into dev.
This kicks off the dev.yaml workflow which will update UAT
I check UAT to make sure that everything works like I expect it to (it almost always does … and when it doesn’t it’s because I’ve mucked around with a server configuration which is the problem, not my code)
I do a pull request from dev to main which updates my production server

My next enhancement is to kick off the dev.yaml process if the tests from django.yaml all pass, i.e. do an auto merge from branch_name to dev, but I haven’t done that yet.

This post is part 8 of the "Deploying your Django App to Digital Ocean" series: