Using Codeship Basic to Test PHP Laravel Applications

Codeship offers developers a vast array of possibilities when creating a continuous integration and deployment pipeline for their applications. I want to focus today on how to build a solid continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipeline for a PHP Laravel application with Codeship Basic.

Our tutorial has a few prerequisites:

• A local installation of Docker Community Edition

• A local download of our sample PHP Laravel App

• A Codeship Basic account - Sign Up

• A Heroku account - Sign Up

We’ll kick things off by configuring our local application. Once downloaded, we can test out the Docker build process by running:

docker-compose build

With our Setup Commands formulated, we’ll move onto creating the Test Pipeline. With Codeship Basic, we only have one pipeline at our disposal. Each of these setups will run in sequence, instead of parallel. For our application, this won’t come too much into play since we only have one pipeline command needed:

docker-compose run web vendor/bin/phpunit

Our containers will then boot up, run our test suite, and exit. All of the tests should pass with flying colors. With a passing test suite in hand, we’ll be able to move on to translating our setup for Codeship.

With a local instance of our Dockerized application set up, we now can start creating our Codeship build and deployment process.

First, we’ll log into Codeship, navigate to the Projects tab, and create a new project. We’ll then select our method of Source Control (GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab) and point Codeship toward our application.

After our application connects, we’ll be presented with the option of making our project a Codeship Pro or Codeship Basic project. For this example, we’ll be running with Codeship Basic.

Next up is the formulation of Setup Commands. Our setup for PHP Laravel applications is formulated almost somewhat as if we were configuring our application locally without Docker.

# Set our PHP Version
phpenv local 5.6
# Install extensions via PECL
#pecl install -f memcache
# Prepare cache directory and install dependencies
mkdir -p ./bootstrap/cache
# Create Postgresql Database
psql -c "CREATE DATABASE codeship_test"
composer install --no-interaction
# Prepare the test database
php artisan migrate

With our Setup Commands formulated, we’ll move onto creating the Test Pipeline. With Codeship Basic, we only have one pipeline at our disposal. Each of these setups will run in sequence, instead of parallel. For our application, this won’t come too much into play since we only have one pipeline command needed:

vendor/bin/phpunit

This command is very similar to the one that we ran within our Docker container in the local setup step.

Finally, we’ll navigate over to the Environment tab and set a few variables for our project.

APP_ENV=test
DB_DATABASE=codeship_test
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=passw0rd
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1

Setting these variables gives a few important pieces of information to our Codeship application. These environmental variables help our Laravel app properly link to our database.

With our Codeship CI pipeline in place, we can now save our setup steps and move on to testing out the configuration! We can trigger a new build by committing new changes to your local project.

git add --all
git commit -m "my first codeship build"
git push origin master

This sequence of commands should trigger our Codeship build pipeline and yield a successful build on Codeship.

With our passing Codeship build, we’ll now set up the Heroku deployment step in our pipeline. In our Codeship Project page, we’ll select Project Settings and click on the Deploy tab.

To start things off, we’ll need to add our Codeship project’s SSH key to the application. We can find our project’s SSH key under the General tab in project settings. Create a .pub file locally and add it to Heroku via the command line:

heroku keys:add your_new_key_file.pub

This will allow Codeship to communicate and push to Heroku if our test suite passes.

Next, we’ll configure the deployment pipeline on Codeship’s side. To start this, we need to grab our Heroku API key:

• Click on your avatar in the upper right, then click Account Settings.

• Near the bottom of the settings page, you will find an API key. Click Reveal.

• Copy the API key.

With the API key copied, navigate to the Deploy tab under project settings. Find the Heroku tile and click on it. You’ll then be asked for your application name (as in what it's named on Heroku) and your API key. Fill out those fields and click Create Deployment.

To test out our new deployment step, make a quick code change to the README of the application and commit the results. This should trigger our pipeline that should follow this pattern:

• Download and configure your project on Codeship.

• If configuration is successful, run tests on project.

• If tests pass, deploy the application to Heroku.

Once this process fully completes without any errors, you then will have a successful Codeship CI/CD pipeline!

With a rock-solid testing and deployment pipeline in place, we can now rapidly develop and deploy in record time. While Codeship Basic is incredibly effective for accomplishing this, Codeship Pro offers even more possibilities and potential for our processes.