Release commands (Beta)#

Note

Release commands are currently provided as a Beta feature, and are available only to users who have signed up for access to Beta-release features. Enable Beta features in your account settings.

What are release commands?#

Release commands are executed during the deployment process, in a container launched from the application’s image. After all the release commands have been performed, the container is discarded and the deployment process continues.

Release command are suited to performing actions that take place in the application’s runtime environment. For example, actions such as:

  • running database migrations (e.g. python manage.py migrate in Django)

  • programmatically applying headers to media storage

  • performing a self-test or batch repair on an application’s content (e.g. python manage.py cms fix-tree in django CMS)

  • performing a self-test on an application’s configuration

  • using an API hook to flush a content cache

  • posting a notice to a company messaging tool to announce a successful deployment

are all good examples of release commands.

They are to be contrasted with actions that take place during the build process to define the application’s runtime environment - for example, compilation of language files or static files - that should be executed in the Dockerfile.

If a release command fails or raises an error, the deployment will fail.

Applying release commands#

Release commands can be added in an application’s Settings view, along with a human-readable label.

'Release commands'

Commands will be executed in the order that they are added.

Commands can also be added programmatically by applications - for example those that use the Aldryn Django framework - and will be listed here as well.

Cautions#

Risk of failed automated commands#

Release commands are executed in the runtime environment, and therefore have access to an application’s resources and services. This includes the database and media storage. For example, a database migration in a release command can alter the structure of the database.

Even if a release command is completed successfully, it is not the final stage in the deployment process, and subsequent checks can also fail, in which case the new image will not be used; instead, the containers launched at the previous deployment will continue running, potentially putting the application into an inconsistent state.

Mitigations such as implementing roll-back mechanisms are the responsibility of the application developer.

Timeouts#

Release commands are suitable for running long-executing processes (for example, S3 header updates can take some time to execute) so we apply a generous timeout (30 minutes). However, commands that exceed this limit will cause a deployment failure.

Failures#

On deployment, a release command that produces an error will be shown in the deployment log under the docker release commands heading, for example:

===== docker release commands =====

Running security configuration checks...

database configuration    ... passed
user accounts             ... passed
gateway server            ... failed (HTTPS not enforced; no exemptions)

Security configuration checks failed.