Developer docs
Developer docs
Breadcrumbs

Manual deployments

Last Updated:

This document elaborates on the standard practices for preforming a manual deploy on vets-website and content-build repositories.

Out-of-band deploys may be performed in accordance with Platform deployment policy.

Manual deployment - vets-website

Before deploying

  • Wait for GitHub Actions to build the change in vets-website

  • Builds status can be viewed here

  • If this build fails, you may need to re-run the workflow by clicking on the failed workflow and selecting “Re-run jobs → Re-run all jobs”

Full production deploy of vets-website

  1. Verify that your changes are committed and that the changes since the last deploy are safe to deploy:

    • Last deployment time: You can check the build history for the time of the last deploy (usually daily at 2pm EST)

    • Commit history: Look for commits after the last deploy and verify they're production ready.
      Note: You may need to contact the developers of those commits to verify.

  2. Start a deploy job

    • Visit the vets-website Daily Production Deploy workflow

    • At the top of the previous workflow runs, click Run workflow

    • Verify Use workflow from is set to Branch: main

    • Verify the Minutes to wait before creating release option is set to 5 minutes

    • Click Run workflow

    • Once the workflow is complete, you will be prompted to approve the deploy( similar to commenting and approving during a code review). You will only be able to do this is you have admin privileges to the vets-website repo. If you do not have privileges reach out in #platform-cop-frontend for assistance to completing the deploy process.

      Daily production deploy CI competed label
      Daily production deploy CI competed label


      Review deployments button
      Review deployments button


      Production (target env) checkbox
      Production (target env) checkbox


      Production (target env) checkbox checked, approve and deploy ready
      Production (target env) checkbox checked, approve and deploy ready

    • Verify commits in deployment notification
      Note: In the #status-vets-website Slack channel, GitHub Actions will include a link that shows the exact commits being released in the deploy notification.

  3. Verify changes in production once the build finishes

Manual deployment of vets-website to staging or dev

When staging deployments get clogged up or staging as a whole falls behind production (for various reasons) you may need to execute a manual deployment for staging. To do this use the following steps:

  1. Make sure the commit you want to use has passed through the build pipeline in main

  2. Copy the commit ref by clicking the Copy icon in the same row of the commit you want to use

  3. Visit the vets-website Manual dev/staging Deploy workflow

  4. At the top of the previous workflow runs, click Run workflow

  5. Verify Use workflow from is set to Branch: main

  6. Paste the previously copied ref value into the Deploy a specific commit field

  7. Select one of the following values in The environment to deploy to

  8. Click Run Workflow

  9. You can watch the deployment process by clicking on your triggered workflow on the vets-website Manual dev/staging Deploy workflow page in GitHub

  10. Confirm that your deployed commit is on staging

Manual deployment - content-build

Multiple manual deploys are supported via GitHub Actions:

  • Partial deploy including only static page changes (vagov-content and Drupal)

  • Full deploy of VA.gov static pages

Content-only production deploy

  1. Start a deploy job

    • Visit the content-build Content Release workflow

    • At the top of the previous workflow runs, click Run workflow

    • Verify Use workflow from is set to Branch: main

    • Verify the Minutes to wait before creating release option is set to 5 minutes

    • Verify the The environment to deploy content to option is set to prod

    • Click Run workflow

    • Verify commits in deployment notification
      Note: In the #status-content-build Slack channel, GitHub Actions will include a link that shows the exact commits being released in the deploy notification.

Full production deploy of content-build

  1. Verify that your changes are committed and that the changes since the last deploy are safe to deploy:

    • Last deployment time: You can check the build history for the time of the last deploy (usually daily at 2pm EST)

    • Commit history: Look for commits after the last deploy and verify they're production ready.
      Note: You may need to contact the developers of those commits to verify.

  2. Start a deploy job

    • Visit the content-build Daily Production Release workflow

    • At the top of the previous workflow runs, click Run workflow

    • Verify Use workflow from is set to Branch: main

    • Verify the Minutes to wait before creating release option is set to 5 minutes

    • Click Run workflow

    • Verify commits in deployment notification

Manual deployment of content-build to staging or dev

When staging deployments get clogged up or staging as a whole falls behind production (for various reasons) you may need to execute a manual deployment for staging. To do this use the following steps:

  1. Make sure the commit you want to use has passed through the build pipeline in main

  2. Copy the commit ref by clicking the Copy icon in the same row of the commit you want to use

  3. Visit the content-build Manual dev/staging Deploy workflow

  4. At the top of the previous workflow runs, click Run workflow

  5. Verify Use workflow from is set to Branch: main

  6. Paste the previously copied ref value into the Deploy a specific commit field

  7. Select one of the following values in The environment to deploy to

  8. Click Run Workflow

  9. You can watch the deployment process by clicking on your triggered workflow on the content-build Manual dev/staging Deploy workflow page in GitHub

  10. Confirm that your deployed commit is on staging


Help and feedback