Staging environment for custom apps

[ekevu123]

When I want to update a custom app but make sure there's no deployment-related issue, I have too choices on Cloudron:

• Update my app, hope for the best and revert immediately using backup (easy, but causes 1-2 minutes of downtime)
• Create a second app for staging only, test it there, and if needed, push again to production

Suggestion: Introduce a staging environment for custom apps

1. Under the hood, this is another custom app in cloudron, but the UI treats it differently
2. I install it using cloudron update --staging for my app
3. I can reach it under a staging domain
4. If I am happy, I can push a button (or run Cloudron CLI) to direct traffic to the new app instead of the previous one. Ideally, staging becomes production and old production gets deleted to reduce downtime, but I haven't thought this through.

Benefits of this approach over the current one:

1. I don't have to create two apps for the same thing, because logically, this is one app in different states
2. Hopefully, this approach could reduce downtime

[robi]

Even if the UI did this as one App, under the hood it's still two completely different containers, environments and apps.

[ekevu123]

Yes, but that doesn't matter much, there could be some UI and CLI shortcuts implemented around it.

[humptydumpty]

The whole switching thing sounds unnecessary. Why not have a "sync" button to keep the staging site up-to-date with the production site for future testing?