You know the drill. A colleague asks you for review and functional testing, of course, is a part of it, you go to the PR, grab branch name, checkout that branch locally, build client again (hopefully, you're using webpack HMR).
You need to spin up backend as well because your frontend doesn’t work without it. Okay, what about the review? You spend already some time just preparing for the review.
Imagine all the possible build errors, database misconfigurations and waiting for yarn install or npm i to complete on the way 🙈
Why should it be so painful and time-consuming?
Imagine, being able effortlessly to do functional testing/review just by visiting some URL automatically posted on the PR, without checking out branch locally, starting a server, etc. Well, it is possible with Zeit Now.
Our Now platform enables you to deploy modern websites and applications without needing any complicated server configuration. Not only do we automatically configure DNS records for your domain, we also instantly issue and renew free wildcard SSL certificates, completely hands-free.
How to configure automated deployments for your repo?
Prerequisites: You should have a GitHub account.
Step 1. Install Zeit Now from the GitHub Marketplace
Go to https://github.com/apps/now GitHub App and click on Install Now or Configure if you have already added it to your account.
Select an account for which you want to configure. You can install GitHub apps for the whole organization's scope.
You will be redirected to Now configuration page:
Step 2. Activate Zeit Now for a specific repository
If you haven't been redirected automatically in the step 1 Go the Personal settings on GitHub find Applications tab where you can find the Now application and click on the Configure button at the right.
When the new page loads scroll down to the bottom. Here you can see an overview of the permissions and repository access.
There are two options configure Now for All repositories and for Only selected repositories. Select Only selected repositories and find your repository for which you want to configure automated updates from the dropdown. Mine is called alex-blog in my case.
Step 3. That's it!
From now on Now is activated on your repository and you'll start seeing each comments from the now bot on the PR with deployed URLs:
To open your current app deployment click on the Preview link from now bot comment.
Investigate Now deployments
Another thing you'll notice is automatic GitHub checks from Commits tab on master for example.
You can click on Details next to Deployment has completed message and investigate deployment details on the Now dashboard.
Note: you might need to sign up with your GitHub user to the Now service if you haven't done this before.
Advantages
- Free automatic deployments
- Push to deploy- it's that easy
- GitHub and GitLab integrations
- Easy to set up
- Zero config
- HTTPS and SSL out of the box
- Deploy anything really
- Enabling developers
- Supports custom domains