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Developer Workflow

From local development to production with CI/CD automation.

Problems this Architecture solves​

  • Clarifies how code moves from local development to production with explicit promotion stages.
  • Reduces manual release coordination by making testing, review, and deployment gates repeatable.
  • Creates earlier feedback loops through pull requests, preview environments, and environment-specific validation.

Pipeline Stages​

1. Local Development​

  • Developer writes code on laptop
  • Run tests locally with npm test or pytest
  • Commit changes to feature branch

2. Feature Branch​

  • Push branch to GitHub
  • CI runs automated tests
  • Linting, type checking, security scans

3. Pull Request​

  • Open PR for code review
  • Required approvals from team
  • CI checks must pass
  • Optional: Deploy preview environment

4. Preview Environment (Optional)​

  • Ephemeral environment per PR
  • URL: pr-123.app.dev
  • Automatically destroyed when PR closes
  • Full stack deployment for testing

5. Dev Environment​

  • Merge to main branch
  • Automatic deployment to dev account
  • Integration tests run
  • Smoke tests verify deployment

6. Staging Environment​

  • Create release tag or branch
  • Deploy to staging for QA validation
  • Load testing and performance testing
  • Manual approval gate

7. Production​

  • Deploy to production after approval
  • Blue-green or canary deployment
  • Automated rollback on failure
  • Post-deployment verification

Key Features​

  • Automated Testing: Unit, integration, and E2E tests at each stage
  • Preview Environments: Test changes in isolation before merge
  • Manual Approval Gates: Require approval for staging and prod
  • Automated Rollback: Revert to previous version on failure
  • Deployment Strategies: Blue-green, canary, rolling updates