Setup CD Pipeline (Containerization and Automated Deployment)

[aniebietafia]

Problem

Currently, the application must be manually deployed to any target environment. There is no Dockerfile for the application, and no automated process to push code from the repository to a running instance. This leads to configuration drift and slow release cycles.

Proposed Solution

Implement a CD pipeline using GitHub Actions that builds a Docker image of the application and deploys it to a target hosting environment (e.g., AWS, GCP, or a VPS). This will include creating a production-ready Dockerfile.

User Stories

• As a developer, I want my changes to be automatically deployed to a staging environment after passing CI tests.
• As a maintainer, I want a reliable, reproducible way to package and deploy the application.

Acceptance Criteria

• Dockerfile and .dockerignore are created for the FastAPI application.
• GitHub Actions workflow file .github/workflows/cd.yml is created.
• Workflow triggers on successful completion of the CI workflow on the main branch.
• Build Step: Builds a Docker image and pushes it to a container registry (e.g., Docker Hub, ECR).
• Deploy Step: Deploys the new image to the target environment (e.g., via SSH, Terraform, or cloud-specific actions).
• Health Check: Workflow verifies the deployment with a health check request.
• Production environment variables are securely managed via GitHub Secrets.

Proposed Technical Details

• Use multi-stage Docker builds to keep the image size small.
• Use actions/checkout@v4, docker/setup-buildx-action@v3, and docker/login-action@v3.
• Configure the workflow to use repository secrets for sensitive data (API keys, DB URLs).
• Ensure the database migrations (alembic upgrade head) are part of the deployment process.

Tasks

• Create a production-ready Dockerfile.
• Create .dockerignore to exclude development files.
• Initialize .github/workflows/cd.yml.
• Setup container registry credentials in GitHub Secrets.
• Implement image build and push logic.
• Implement deployment logic (e.g., docker-compose up -d on a remote server).
• Document the CD process in the project's README or a new DEPLOYMENT.md.