🚀 Deployment

📋 Overview

The LIPAIX platform uses a modern deployment strategy with Railway for cloud hosting, trunk-based development for version control, and automated CI/CD pipelines for seamless deployments.

🏗️ Architecture Overview

Our deployment strategy follows these principles:

🚀 Cloud-First - Railway for scalable cloud hosting
🔄 Trunk-Based Development - Main branch as the source of truth
🤖 Automated Deployments - CI/CD pipelines for zero-downtime updates
📊 Monitoring & Observability - Health checks, metrics, and logging
🔒 Security First - Environment variables, secrets management

Deployment Architecture Diagram

┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│ Developer   │───▶│Feature Branch│───▶│Pull Request │
└─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘
                           │                   │
                           ▼                   ▼
                    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
                    │Code Review  │    │CI/CD Pipeline│
                    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘
                           │                   │
                           ▼                   ▼
                    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
                    │   Merge     │───▶│   Deploy    │
                    │   to Main   │    │  to Railway │
                    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                       ┌─────────────┐
                                       │Production   │
                                       │Environment  │
                                       └─────────────┘
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                       ┌─────────────┐
                                       │Health Checks│
                                       │& Monitoring │
                                       └─────────────┘

🛠️ Technology Stack

Our deployment technology stack:

┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│   GitHub    │───▶│GitHub Actions│───▶│  Railway    │
└─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘
                                              │
                                              ├───▶ PostgreSQL
                                              ├───▶ Redis
                                              ├───▶ Next.js App
                                              ├───▶ Discord Bot
                                              └───▶ Documentation

┌─────────────┐
│   Sentry    │───▶ Error Monitoring
└─────────────┘

🔄 Deployment Workflow

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Deployment is MANUAL, not automatic!

Our deployment process follows a manual workflow using GitHub Actions:

Manual Deployment Process

🚀 Developer creates feature branch from main
📝 Code changes and commits on feature branch
🔀 Pull Request to main branch
✅ Code review and approval by team members
🔄 Merge to main (does NOT trigger deployment)
👤 Manual deployment trigger via GitHub Actions
🚂 Railway deployment from deployment branches

Key Points

❌ Merging to main does NOT deploy automatically
✅ Deployment requires manual action via GitHub Actions
🔧 Separate deployment branches for staging and production
📋 Manual approval for each deployment

Deployment Branches

main (source of truth)
├── deploy/web (production deployment)
└── deploy/staging/web (staging deployment)

These branches are updated manually when deploying, not automatically on merge.

📁 Getting Started

Git Workflow & Versioning - Learn our trunk-based development approach
Railway - Understand our cloud deployment platform
Deployment Overview - Master the complete deployment process

🔧 Environment Management

Environment Variables

We use Railway's environment variable management for:

Database connections - PostgreSQL credentials
API keys - External service integrations
Feature flags - A/B testing and gradual rollouts
Secrets - Sensitive configuration data

Environment Types

Development - Local development environment
Staging - Pre-production testing environment
Production - Live production environment

📊 Monitoring & Observability

Health Checks

Application Health - /api/health endpoint
Database Connectivity - Connection pool monitoring
External Services - API dependency checks
Performance Metrics - Response time monitoring

Logging & Metrics

Structured Logging - JSON format for easy parsing
Performance Metrics - Core Web Vitals tracking
Error Tracking - Sentry integration for crash reporting
Business Metrics - User engagement and conversion tracking

🚨 Incident Response

Automated Alerts

Performance Degradation - Response time thresholds
Error Rate Spikes - Exception monitoring
Service Unavailability - Health check failures
Resource Exhaustion - Memory and CPU monitoring

Rollback Strategy

Quick Rollback - Revert to previous deployment
Feature Flags - Disable problematic features
Database Rollback - Point-in-time recovery
Communication - Stakeholder notification process

🚀 Deployment ​

📋 Overview ​

🏗️ Architecture Overview ​

Deployment Architecture Diagram ​

🛠️ Technology Stack ​

🔄 Deployment Workflow ​

Manual Deployment Process ​

Key Points ​

Deployment Branches ​

📁 Getting Started ​

🔧 Environment Management ​

Environment Variables ​

Environment Types ​

📊 Monitoring & Observability ​

Health Checks ​

Logging & Metrics ​

🚨 Incident Response ​

Automated Alerts ​

Rollback Strategy ​