Starter project workflow

The Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure includes a single Git repository with a master branch for the production environment that can be branched to create a staging and multiple integration environments for testing and development work. You can have up to four active environments, including a master environment for your production server. See Starter architecture for an overview.

For your environments, follow the Development > Staging > Production workflow to develop and deploy your site.

For your branches, you can follow any development methodology. For example, you can follow an Agile methodology such as scrum to create branches for every sprint.

From each sprint, you can create branches for every user story. All the stories become testable. You can continually merge to the sprint branch and validate that branch on a continuous basis. When the sprint ends, you can merge the sprint branch to master to deploy all sprint changes to production without having to deal with a testing bottleneck.

Development workflow

Development and deployment on Starter plans begin with your initial project. You create your project with the “blank site”, which is an Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure template code repo with a fully prepared store. This creates a master branch with a copy of the code from your production environment.

The development workflow includes the following:

You also have a few optional steps to help develop and test your code and your store data:

This process assumes that you have set up your local developer workspace.

Clone and branch

For a new Starter Plan project, a master branch was cloned from the Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure Git repository. To start branching and working with code, clone the master branch to your local environment.

The format of the Git clone command is:

git fetch origin

git pull origin <environment-ID>

The first time you start working in branches for your Starter project, create a staging branch. This creates a code branch matching the master branch that deploys to a Staging environment to test configuration and code changes before deploying to the production environment.

Next, create branches from staging to develop code, add extensions, and configure third-party integrations. Anytime you develop custom code, add extensions, integrate with a third-party service, work in a development branch created from the staging branch. You have four active integration environments available. When you push an active branch, one of these integration environments automatically deploys your code to test.

The format of the Git branch command is:

git checkout <branch-name>

The format of the Cloud CLI branch command is:

magento-cloud environment:branch <environment-name> <parent-environment-ID>

Develop code

Using the base branch of Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure code, you can start installing extensions, developing custom code, adding themes, and much more.

Use a branching strategy with your development work. Using one branch to do all of your work all at once might make testing difficult. For example, you could follow continuous integration and sprint methodologies to work:

Until you have your store fully built, configured, and ready to launch. But keep reading, there are many options for your store and code configuration.

Configure store

When you are ready to configure your store, push all your code to the integration environment. Configure your store settings from the Admin for the integration environment, not in your local environment. You can find the URL by clicking Access site in the Cloud Console

For the best information on configurations, review the documentation for Adobe Commerce and the installed extensions. Here are some links and ideas that help you get started:

Beyond just store settings, you can further configure multiple sites and stores, configured services, and more. See Configure your store.

Generate configuration management files

If you are familiar with Adobe Commerce, you may be concerned about how to get your configuration settings from your database in development to the staging and production environments. Previously, you had to copy all your configuration settings down on paper or to a file, and then manually apply the settings to other environments. Or you may have dumped your database and pushed that data to another environment.

Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure provides a set of two Configuration Management commands that export configuration settings from your environment into a file. These commands are only available for Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure 2.2 and later.

The generated file is app/etc/config.php.

Generate the file in the integration environment where you configured Adobe Commerce. Step through the process of generating the file, adding it to your branch, and deploying it.

Important notes on Configuration Management:

If you are using Adobe Commerce version 2.2 or later, the configuration management commands provide an additional feature to protect sensitive data, like sandbox credentials for a PayPal module. During the export process, any values that contain sensitive data are exported to separate configuration file—env.php in the app/etc/ directory. This file remains in your local environment and does not get copied when you push your code to another branch. You can also create environment variables with CLI commands in all Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure versions.

See Configuration Management.

Push code and test

At this point, you should have a developed code branch with a configuration file (config.local.php or config.php) ready to test.

Every time you push code from your local environment, a series of build and deploy scripts run. These scripts generate new code and deploy it to the remote environment. For example, if you are pushing a development branch from your local environment to the remote branch, a matching environment updates services, code, and static content.

You can directly access this environment with a store URL, Admin URL, and SSH. These environments include a web server, database, and configured services. When ready, you can start deploying and testing in the Staging environment.

For more information, see Deployment workflow.

Optional: Install sample data

If you need some example data when developing your store, you can install sample data. This data simulates an active store, including customers, products, and other data. This sample data works best with a “blank site” Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure template installation when creating your project. As a best practice, remove the sample data before going live. See Install optional sample data.

Optional: Pull production data

Add all of your products, catalogs, site content, and so on, directly to the production environment. By adding this data to the production environment, you can provide updated prices, coupons, inventory stock, sales announcements, information about future offerings, and more for your customers. This data does not include extension configurations, which you configure in your local development branch.

As you develop features, add extensions, and design themes, having real data to work with is helpful. At any time, you can create a database dump from the production environment and push that to your Staging and integration environments as needed.

To help export Production data as test data to use in staging and integration environments:

To migrate this data, see Migrate and deploy static files and data.

Deployment workflow

As detailed in the architecture information, Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure is Git driven. Deploying Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure is part of your Git push processes for branches.

When you push branched code from your local environment to the remote branch, a series of build and deploy scripts begin.

Build scripts:

Deploy scripts:

When fully completed, your store comes back online, live, with all of your updated code and configurations.

See Deployment process.

Push to Staging and test

Always push your code in iterations to the staging environment for full testing. The first time you use this environment, you must configure a few services, including Fastly and New Relic. Also, configure payment gateways, shipping, notifications, and other vital services with sandbox or testing credentials.

Staging is a pre-production environment, providing all services and settings as close to production as possible. Thoroughly test every service, verify your performance testing tools, perform UAT testing as an administrator and as a customer, until you feel your store is ready for production.

See Deploy your store.

Push to Production

When you push to the master branch, you are pushing to the production environment. Complete configuration and testing activities in the production environment as you did in the staging environment with one important difference. In the production environment, use live credentials for configuration and testing. The moment you launch your site, customers can complete purchases, and administrators can manage the live store.

See Deploy your store.

Site launch

There is a clear walk-through for going live with your site. After you complete these steps, your store can serve up products in your customized theme for sale immediately.

See Site launch.

Continuous integration

Following your branching and development methodologies, you can easily develop new features, configure changes, and add extensions to continuously develop and deploy updates.

All cloud infrastructure environments support continuous integration for constant updates. This workflow supports releases multiple times a day or on a set schedule according to your business needs.