Automatically deploy using Capistrano

Code deploys should be frequent and automated. Where ever possible, this means using capistrano.

It’s likely you’ll be deploying to a server that was built with ansible-samvera build scripts, in which case, please follow this Capifying guide.

Deploy Targets

For DCE projects, the standard deploy targets are:

• cd - Stands for “Continuous Deploy”. The current version of the code is automatically deployed on a cron job (usually every 24 hours). Not used for all projects.
• qa - Stands for “Quality Assurance”. Used for acceptance testing; the client (sometimes an internal DCE client) can sign off that what they’re seeing is good to move forward, or give feedback for further work needed.
• stage - Short for “Staging”. Pre-production checking for successful deployment. Should be as close as possible to production environment.
• prod - Short for “Production”. Where the application is accessed by end users. Should be as stable and seamless for users as possible.

Note: This documents practice going forward. There are some older systems that currently use ‘dev’ as a stage name, e.g. tenejo-dev.curationexperts.com. We have moved away from using “dev” as a stage because it can cause confusion with the phrase “development environment” (which is the developer’s local computer, not a server or deploy target).