ci-cd-pipeline.md

⚙️ MapleCMS CI/CD Pipeline Guide

MapleCMS uses a fully automated CI/CD pipeline to deploy both its Next.js frontend and FastAPI backend to AWS. This document explains the entire flow — from local commits to production deployment.

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🧠 Overview

MapleCMS follows a modern DevOps pipeline using GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, and AWS ECS/ECR.

CI/CD Flow Summary

   Developer → GitHub Push → CI (Build + Test) → Docker Build → ECR → ECS Deploy → Live Site

Each step is automated to ensure reliable, repeatable, and zero-downtime deployments.

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🧩 1. Continuous Integration (CI)

Trigger

• Triggered on every push or pull_request to main or dev branch.

Steps

1. Checkout Repository – Pull latest code.
2. Set up Environments – Configure Python, Node.js, AWS credentials.
3. Install Dependencies – npm install and pip install -r requirements.txt.
4. Run Tests – Unit & integration tests for both frontend and backend.
5. Build Docker Images – Create container images for frontend and backend.
6. Push to AWS ECR – Tag & upload images to Elastic Container Registry.

Example GitHub Actions job:

name: CI Build
on:
  push:
    branches: [main, dev]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'

      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.11'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: |
          cd frontend && npm ci
          cd ../backend && pip install -r requirements.txt

      - name: Run tests
        run: |
          cd backend && pytest
          cd ../frontend && npm run test

      - name: Build Docker images
        run: |
          docker build -t maplecms-frontend:latest ./frontend
          docker build -t maplecms-backend:latest ./backend

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☁️ 2. Continuous Deployment (CD)

AWS Infrastructure Components

Component	Service	Purpose
Compute	ECS (Elastic Container Service)	Runs containers in Fargate mode
Registry	ECR (Elastic Container Registry)	Stores Docker images
Storage	S3	Media uploads + static assets
Database	RDS (PostgreSQL)	Content + user data
Networking	CloudFront + ALB	CDN and load balancing

Steps in CD

1. Terraform Apply – Provisions ECS, RDS, and networking infrastructure.
2. ECS Service Update – Pulls the latest Docker image from ECR.
3. Smoke Tests – Confirms deployment health.
4. Notifications – Sends deployment status to Slack/Email.

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🧱 3. Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

Terraform manages all AWS resources declaratively.

Modules:

• ecs/ → Cluster + Services
• rds/ → PostgreSQL instance
• s3/ → Buckets for media and static assets
• cloudfront/ → CDN + SSL
• iam/ → Role & policy management

Commands:

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply -auto-approve

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🔒 4. Secrets & Security

• Secrets managed via AWS Secrets Manager.
• GitHub secrets for CI/CD credentials (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY).
• HTTPS enforced by AWS ACM certificates.
• Principle of least privilege applied for all IAM roles.

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🚀 5. Deployment Environments

Environment	Branch	Infrastructure	Notes
Dev	dev	Staging ECS + RDS	Auto-deployed on merge
Prod	main	Production ECS + RDS	Manual approval required

Manual promotion between environments ensures stable releases.

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🧩 6. Rollback & Monitoring

Rollback Procedure

• Use terraform destroy -target=aws_ecs_service.maplecms_backend (to redeploy previous version)
• Previous Docker images are versioned in ECR.

Monitoring

• AWS CloudWatch for logs, CPU, and latency.
• Optional Prometheus + Grafana for visualization.
• Alert notifications through AWS SNS.

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🧭 Summary

• GitHub Actions for CI/CD automation.
• Terraform for infrastructure as code.
• AWS ECS + ECR for scalable, containerized hosting.
• Secure secrets and zero-downtime deploys.

MapleCMS CI/CD ensures reliability, speed, and simplicity — empowering developers to deploy confidently with every commit.