Andromeda Build and Deploy Explainer

Supporting multiple means of CI/CD for Andromeda

If I started my previous two posts about loving Containers and loving Functions, then you can probably tell where I am going with this one. CI/CD as a concept and in its implementation is something I love. I do not know why, but I feel this sense of empowerment when I have something, I have created myself that gets built and deployed automatically to multiple environments. My overall CI tasks are relatively simple being honest. They might just do a basic build in Gradle or a copy to an S3 bucket, but they get the job done and have since been used quite a lot in my own personal applications.

Andromeda Build and Deploy is one of the most important bits of the puzzle. It supports all the current methods of running applications today and it will most likely support even more items going down the line. Be that either in the languages I use or the target environments my applications will run in. But at the core of it, Build and Deploy is responsible for building code and deploying it across the various Andromeda services that require it. Which today, includes Containers and Functions.

Primarily, all my CI tasks are in fact handled by Github Actions. I continue to use the managed Github Actions runners today, but I have a task somewhere to migrate to self-hosted runners, just to see how it goes. The configuration files are all stored in a Github repo that itself is also CI’d with one of the workflows to an S3 bucket. That is so other services in the configuration process (eg – Andromeda Containers for example) can call S3 directly to get the required workflows in to the app right off the bat. Configuration files are broken up in the repo to Github Actions and AWS CodeBuild, the two CI services I primarily use.

CI Tasks supported include S3 deployments, Docker build and pushes to AWS ECR (my private Docker registry of task) and a Gradle Build and push of the build ZIP to S3. Although as of writing this, AWS CodeArtifact was just launched, so that could potentially be added here! Another supported task is Jekyll site building which is what this website uses. So the Jekyll site build is combined with a Docker build and deployment task. CD includes Kubernetes and AWS Lambda today, with potentially more target destinations down the line, but for right now this works alright.

Overall, I think CI/CD is critical to easier side project development from a personal perspective. It means there is a lot more abstracted away from me and I can just focus on the code side of things. It sounds like as I write that, I am also explaining the benefits of good CI/CD that you might here in your workplace. I think Build and Deploy is one of my favourite internal services and I’m quite looking forward to expanding out a lot more as my knowledge and needs grow.