alumni_lookup

Current Environment & Deployment State

Last Updated: December 2, 2025
Purpose: Document the current state of environments, deployment workflow, and identify gaps for pipeline improvements.

Table of Contents

  1. Environment Summary
  2. Local Development
  3. Test Environment
  4. Production Environment
  5. External Services by Environment
  6. Current Deployment Workflow
  7. Gaps & Risks

Environment Summary

Environment Status Database Hosts Purpose
Development ✅ Active alumni_lookup_development (local PG) lookup.bualum.dev:3000, champions.bualum.dev:3000 Local coding/testing
Test ✅ Active alumni_lookup_test (local PG) localhost:3000 Minitest suite (241 tests)
Staging ❌ None — — No staging environment exists
Production ✅ Active Heroku Postgres lookup.bualum.co, champions.bualum.co Live users

Local Development

How to Run

# Standard start (uses foreman + Procfile.dev)
bin/dev

# This runs:
# - Rails server with SSL on port 3000
# - Tailwind CSS watcher

Configuration

Aspect Details Source
Procfile Procfile.dev Uses SSL with local certs
Process Manager Foreman Installed via bin/dev if missing
Port 3000 Default via $PORT
SSL Certs champions.bualum.dev.pem, champions.bualum.dev-key.pem Local SSL for subdomain testing
Subdomains lookup.bualum.dev, champions.bualum.dev Configured in config.hosts
TLD Length 1 Set in development.rb for .dev domain

Database

External Services in Development

Service Behavior Configuration
Email Letter Opener (opens in browser) delivery_method: :letter_opener
File Storage Local disk (storage/) active_storage.service: :local
Cloudinary Not used —
CRM/Salesforce No live integration Contact ID field exists but export-only

Required Local Setup

Test Environment

How to Run

# Full test suite
rails test

# Specific file
rails test test/models/alumni_test.rb

# Specific test
rails test test/models/champion_signup_test.rb:4

Configuration

Aspect Details Source
Framework Minitest Rails default
Test Count 241 tests, 573 assertions See TESTING_GUIDE.md
CI Eager Load ENV["CI"].present? test.rb line 17
Fixtures test/fixtures/ 10+ fixture files

Database

External Services in Test

Service Behavior Configuration
Email Test adapter (no delivery) delivery_method: :test
File Storage Temp disk (tmp/storage) active_storage.service: :test
Caching Null store cache_store: :null_store

Production Environment

Hosting

Aspect Details
Platform Heroku
App Name alumni-lookup
Dyno Type 2x Web (1 dyno, ~$0.069/hr)
Database Essential 0 (~$0.007/hr)

Processes

Process Command Source
web bundle exec puma -C config/puma.rb Procfile

Configuration

Setting Value Source
RAILS_MAX_THREADS 3 deploy_memory_fix.sh
WEB_CONCURRENCY 1 deploy_memory_fix.sh
RAILS_LOG_LEVEL info deploy_memory_fix.sh
Force SSL true production.rb

Database

External Services in Production

Service Provider Env Vars Status
Email Mailgun MAILGUN_API_KEY, MAILGUN_DOMAIN, MAILGUN_API_HOST ✅ Configured
File Storage Cloudinary CLOUDINARY_URL ✅ Configured
CRM Salesforce None (export-only via Contact ID) ✅ One-way export
Logging Heroku Logs — ✅ Default
Monitoring ❓ — Not confirmed

Domains

Subdomain Purpose DNS
lookup.bualum.co Internal staff portal Points to Heroku
champions.bualum.co External champion signup Points to Heroku

External Services by Environment

Service Development Test Production
Email Letter Opener Test adapter Mailgun API
Storage Local disk Temp disk Cloudinary
Database Local Postgres Local Postgres Heroku Postgres
CRM/Salesforce No integration No integration Export-only (Contact ID)
SSL Local certs None Heroku ACM
Caching Optional (null by default) Null store Memory store (64MB)

Current Deployment Workflow

“Blind Push to Production” (Current)

┌─────────────────┐
│ Local Dev       │
│ (bin/dev)       │
└────────┬────────┘
         │ git commit + push
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ main branch     │
│ (GitHub)        │
└────────┬────────┘
         │ git push heroku main
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ Production      │◄── No staging, no gates
│ (Heroku)        │
└─────────────────┘

Deployment Commands (Current)

# Typical deploy
git push heroku main
heroku run rails db:migrate

# Or via deploy_memory_fix.sh (includes config vars)
./deploy_memory_fix.sh

Post-Deploy Verification (Manual/Ad-Hoc)

No formal smoke test checklist exists. Staff manually verify:

Gaps & Risks

🔴 Critical Gaps

Gap Risk Impact
No Staging Environment Breaking changes hit production immediately High - user-facing bugs
No CI Pipeline Tests not run on every push/PR High - regressions slip through
No Deploy Gates Deploys proceed without test verification High - broken deploys
No Smoke Test Checklist Post-deploy validation is ad-hoc Medium - issues discovered late

🟡 Moderate Gaps

Gap Risk Impact
No Rollback Plan Slow recovery from bad deploys Medium - extended downtime
Manual Migrations Forgotten migrations or wrong order Medium - data issues
No Review Apps Can’t preview PR changes live Low - dev friction
Limited Monitoring Heroku logs only, no APM Low - slow incident response

🟢 In Good Shape

Aspect Status Details
Test Suite ✅ 241 tests, 573 assertions, 0 failures
Documentation ✅ Comprehensive docs in /docs
Role-Based Access ✅ Admin/Staff fully enforced
Two-Domain Architecture ✅ lookup + champions working
External Services ✅ Mailgun, Cloudinary configured

Confirmed Details

Question Answer
Heroku App Name alumni-lookup
Dyno Plan 2x Web (1 dyno, ~$0.069/hr)
Database Plan Essential 0 (~$0.007/hr)
GitHub Actions ✅ Available
DNS Management Owner-managed
Staging Usage Light — sanity testing only