README-devops.md

DevOps & CI/CD Workflow

This project implements a robust, modern DevOps pipeline that automates software delivery following several key best practices:

Branching Strategy

All development work is done on feature branches, which are then merged into the dev branch after review and testing.

Once features are considered stable and ready for release, changes from dev are merged into main, which is the protected branch and represents production-ready code.

CI/CD Pipeline Overview

The delivery process is fully automated using GitHub Actions.
Key pipeline steps include:

1. Open Issue & Feature Branch Creation:
   • Development starts by opening an issue and creating a feature branch from dev.
2. Continuous Integration on PRs and Pushes to main/dev:
   • Triggered by push or pull request on main or dev branches.
   • Build & Unit Test: Automatically compiles code and runs Java unit tests (JUnit via Maven).
   • Linter & Style Check: Runs Checkstyle and SpotBugs for static code analysis and style enforcement.
   • SAST (Static Application Security Testing): Uses Snyk for security scanning with enforcement (pipeline fails on severe issues).
   • Build Docker Image & Scan:
     • Builds Docker image.
     • Runs Trivy for Docker vulnerability scanning.
3. Continuous Delivery (CD) to Kubernetes (K8s):
   • Triggered on push to main or manually via workflow dispatch.
   • Two-stage pipeline:
     • Build & Push: Builds and pushes Docker image to Docker Hub with latest and commit SHA tags.
     • Deploy: Applies Kubernetes manifests (namespace, deployment, service) to local Minikube cluster via self-hosted runner.
   • Features rolling restart, deployment monitoring, and automatic rollback on failure.

Future Improvements

• Add a relational database (e.g., PostgreSQL) for user profiles, playlists, or playback history.
• Store uploaded songs in AWS S3 for scalable, cloud-based storage.
• Deploy a test environment on AWS EC2 for integration and end-to-end test automation.