**Course Title:** Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) **Section Title:** Continuous Delivery vs. Continuous Deployment **Topic:** Create a pipeline that deploys a web application to a staging environment.(Lab topic) **Objective:** By the end of this lab, you will be able to create a CI/CD pipeline that automatically deploys a web application to a staging environment. You will learn how to configure a pipeline that integrates with a version control system, builds and tests the application, and deploys it to a staging environment. **Prerequisites:** * Familiarity with CI/CD concepts and Git version control * Knowledge of a CI tool such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, or Travis CI * Understanding of automated testing and deployment strategies **Create a pipeline that deploys a web application to a staging environment:** In this lab, we will create a CI/CD pipeline that deploys a web application to a staging environment using GitHub Actions and Azure Web Apps. The pipeline will automatically trigger on push events to the main branch, build and test the application, and deploy it to a staging environment. **Step 1: Create a new GitHub Actions workflow** * Log in to your GitHub account and navigate to the repository that contains your web application code * Create a new file in the `.github/workflows` directory called `deploy-to-staging.yml` * Add the following YAML code to the file: ```yml name: Deploy to Staging on: push: branches: - main jobs: deploy: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Checkout code uses: actions/checkout@v2 - name: Build and test run: | npm install npm run test - name: Deploy to staging uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2 with: app-name: ${{ secrets.STAGING_APP_NAME }} slot-name: 'staging' publish-profile: ${{ secrets.STAGING_PUBLISH_PROFILE }} ``` * Save and commit the changes to the file **Step 2: Configure Azure Web Apps** * Log in to your Azure account and navigate to the Azure portal * Create a new web app or navigate to an existing one * Create a new slot called `staging` * Configure the slot to use a publish profile **Step 3: Store secrets in GitHub** * Log in to your GitHub account and navigate to the repository that contains your web application code * Go to the repository settings and click on "Actions" * Click on "Secrets" and add the following secrets: + `STAGING_APP_NAME`: the name of the Azure web app + `STAGING_PUBLISH_PROFILE`: the publish profile for the staging slot **Step 4: Test the pipeline** * Make a change to the code and push it to the main branch * The pipeline should automatically trigger and deploy the application to the staging environment **Conclusion:** In this lab, you created a CI/CD pipeline that automates the deployment of a web application to a staging environment using GitHub Actions and Azure Web Apps. You learned how to configure a pipeline that integrates with a version control system, builds and tests the application, and deploys it to a staging environment. **Key Concepts:** * CI/CD pipelines * GitHub Actions * Azure Web Apps * Automated testing and deployment * Environment variables and secrets **Practical Takeaways:** * Create a CI/CD pipeline that automates the deployment of a web application to a staging environment * Use GitHub Actions and Azure Web Apps to implement the pipeline * Store secrets in GitHub to secure sensitive information * Test the pipeline by making changes to the code and verifying the deployment to the staging environment **External Resources:** * GitHub Actions documentation: <https://docs.github.com/en/actions> * Azure Web Apps documentation: <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/> * GitHub Actions YAML syntax: <https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions> **Questions or Need Help?** If you have any questions or need help with this lab, please leave a comment below.