Section 2 of 3

Integrate with your CI pipeline¶

In this section, we'll discuss how to integrate the Docker Compose template you created in the previous section with your CI pipeline. If you're using Uffizzi CI, there is no extra configuration required. You can skip to the next section.

If you're using an external CI provider, such as GitHub Actions, GitLab, or CircleCI, you will need to add a step to the end of your pipeline that will use Uffizzi to deploy your application to an on-demand test environment. Exact instructions will vary by provider, so the GitHub Actions guide shown below should be used as a general outline if you're using a different provider.

You can see a complete example workflow using GitHub Actions here.

Output tags from your build step¶

In this step, we'll add a few lines to the build job of our workflow to output the tags of our container images. Later, we'll use these tags in our compose file. In GitHub Actions, this can be done with outputs, as highlighted below.

GitHub Actions

.github/workflows/ci.yml

name: Build images and deploy with Uffizzi

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - master
      - staging
      - qa
  pull_request:
    types: [opened,reopened,synchronize,closed]

jobs:
  # Build and push app image
  build-app:
    name: Build and Push `app`
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  outputs:
    tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
  steps:
    - name: Login to Container Registry
    uses: docker/login-action@v2
    with:
      registry: ghcr.io
      username: ${{ github.actor }}
      password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    - name: Checkout git repo
      uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - name: Docker metadata
      id: meta
      uses: docker/metadata-action@v3
      with:
        images: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository_owner }}/example-app
    - name: Build and Push Image to GitHub Container Registry
      uses: docker/build-push-action@v2
      with:
        push: true
        tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
        labels: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.labels }}
        context: ./app

  [...]

Render and cache a new compose file¶

Recall that in the previous section, we created a Docker Compose template that replaced our static image name with a variable, denoted in the example as image: "${APP_IMAGE}". In this step, we'll set and export that variable using the outputs of the previous job. Additionally, we'll set and export our database secrets that we configured in the preview section.

Next, we'll use the common utility envsubst and shell I/O redirection (<, >) to render a new compose file that includes the image name literal. Finally, we store this rendered compose file in the GitHub Actions cache.

GitHub Actions

.github/workflows/ci.yml

name: Build images and deploy with Uffizzi

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - master
      - staging
      - qa
  pull_request:
    types: [opened,reopened,synchronize]

jobs:
  # Build and push app image
  build-app:
    name: Build and Push `app`
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  outputs:
    tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
  steps:
    - name: Login to Container Registry
    uses: docker/login-action@v2
    with:
      registry: ghcr.io
      username: ${{ github.actor }}
      password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    - name: Checkout git repo
      uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - name: Docker metadata
      id: meta
      uses: docker/metadata-action@v3
      with:
        images: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository_owner }}/example-app
    - name: Build and Push Image to GitHub Container Registry
      uses: docker/build-push-action@v2
      with:
        push: true
        tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
        labels: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.labels }}
        context: ./app

  render-compose-file:
    name: Render Docker Compose File
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: 
      - build-app
    outputs:
      compose-file-cache-key: ${{ steps.hash.outputs.hash }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout git repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Render Compose File
        run: |
          APP_IMAGE=$(echo ${{ needs.build-app.outputs.tags }})
          export APP_IMAGE
          PGUSER=${{ secrets.PGUSER }}
          export PGUSER
          PGPASSWORD=${{ secrets.PGPASSWORD }}
          export PGPASSWORD
          # Render simple template from environment variables.
          envsubst < docker-compose.template.yml > docker-compose.rendered.yml
          cat docker-compose.rendered.yml
      - name: Hash Rendered Compose File
        id: hash
        run: echo "::set-output name=hash::$(md5sum docker-compose.rendered.yml | awk '{ print $1 }')"
      - name: Cache Rendered Compose File
        uses: actions/cache@v3
        with:
          path: docker-compose.rendered.yml
          key: ${{ steps.hash.outputs.hash }}

  [...]

Pass rendered compose file from cache to the reusable workflow¶

Uffizzi publishes a GitHub Actions reusable workflow that can be used to create, update, and delete on-demand test environments given a compose file. This reusable workflow will spin up the Uffizzi CLI on a GitHub Actions runner, which then opens a connection to the Uffizzi platform.

In this final step, we'll pass the cached compose file from the previous step to this reusable workflow. In response, Uffizzi will create a test environment, and post the environment URL as a comment to your pull request issue. This URL will also be available in your environment's containers as the UFFIZZI_URL environment variable.

This workflow takes as input the following required parameters:

compose-file-cache-key
compose-file-cache-path
username - Your Uffizzi username (See next section)
server - https://app.uffizzi.com or your own Uffizzi API endpoint if you are self-hosting (See next section)
project - A Uffizzi project ID (See next section)
password - Your Uffizzi account password stored as a GitHub Actions secret (See next section)

Additionally, this workflow has a few optional parameters if you have configured password protection for your Uffizzi test environments. For instructions on configuring passwords, follow this guide.

url-username - An HTTP username
url-password - An HTTP password stored as a GitHub Actions secret
personal-access-token - Github personal access token with access to the read:packages scope. This parameter is required only if you use GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io) to store images.

GitHub Actions

.github/workflows/ci.yml

name: Build images and deploy with Uffizzi

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - master
      - staging
      - qa
  pull_request:
    types: [opened,reopened,synchronize]

jobs:
  # Build and push app image
  build-app:
    name: Build and Push `app`
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  outputs:
    tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
  steps:
    - name: Login to Container Registry
    uses: docker/login-action@v2
    with:
      registry: ghcr.io
      username: ${{ github.actor }}
      password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    - name: Checkout git repo
      uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - name: Docker metadata
      id: meta
      uses: docker/metadata-action@v3
      with:
        images: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository_owner }}/example-app
    - name: Build and Push Image to GitHub Container Registry
      uses: docker/build-push-action@v2
      with:
        push: true
        tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
        labels: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.labels }}
        context: ./app

  render-compose-file:
    name: Render Docker Compose File
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: 
      - build-app
    outputs:
      compose-file-cache-key: ${{ steps.hash.outputs.hash }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout git repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Render Compose File
        run: |
          APP_IMAGE=$(echo ${{ needs.build-app.outputs.tags }})
          export APP_IMAGE
          PGUSER=${{ secrets.PGUSER }}
          export PGUSER
          PGPASSWORD=${{ secrets.PGPASSWORD }}
          export PGPASSWORD
          # Render simple template from environment variables.
          envsubst < docker-compose.template.yml > docker-compose.rendered.yml
          cat docker-compose.rendered.yml
      - name: Hash Rendered Compose File
        id: hash
        run: echo "::set-output name=hash::$(md5sum docker-compose.rendered.yml | awk '{ print $1 }')"
      - name: Cache Rendered Compose File
        uses: actions/cache@v3
        with:
          path: docker-compose.rendered.yml
          key: ${{ steps.hash.outputs.hash }}

  # Create and update test environments with Uffizzi
  deploy-uffizzi-preview:
    name: Use Remote Workflow to Preview on Uffizzi
    needs: render-compose-file
    uses: UffizziCloud/preview-action/.github/workflows/reusable.yaml@v2.1.0
    if: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' && github.event.action != 'closed' }}
    with:
      compose-file-cache-key: ${{ needs.render-compose-file.outputs.compose-file-cache-key }}
      compose-file-cache-path: docker-compose.rendered.yml
      username: foo@example.com
      server: https://app.uffizzi.com
      project: my-application
    secrets:
      password: ${{ secrets.UFFIZZI_PASSWORD }}
      personal-access-token: ${{ secrets.GHCR_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
      url-username: admin
      url-password: ${{ secrets.URL_PASSWORD }}
    permissions:
      contents: read
      pull-requests: write

  # Delete test environments with Uffizzi
  delete-uffizzi-preview:
    name: Use Remote Workflow to Delete an Existing Preview
    uses: UffizziCloud/preview-action/.github/workflows/reusable.yaml@v2.1.0
    if: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' && github.event.action == 'closed' }}
    with:
      compose-file-cache-key: ''
      compose-file-cache-path: docker-compose.rendered.yml
      username: foo@example.com
      server: https://app.uffizzi.com
      project: my-application
    secrets:
      password: ${{ secrets.UFFIZZI_PASSWORD }}
permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write

See the full documentation for this reusable workflow.

Next article¶

Connect to Uffizzi Cloud