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Continuous integration (CI) & deployment (CD)

This document provides information about the automated CI / CD pipelines and scripts used for managing, building, testing, packaging, and releasing the application components.

CI / CD npm scripts​

The root package.json file defines dedicated npm scripts for automating the build, validation, packaging, and deployment pipelines across all application components.

All CI/CD automation scripts adhere to a unified naming convention using the :ci suffix (formatted as <action>:<component>:ci). These scripts should be used to automate pipeline workflows in continuous integration environments and avoid reliance on interactive or platform-specific local developer configurations:

1. Back-end pipeline​

  • npm run prerequisites:back-end:ci: prepares the build workspace, compiles shared core and back-end libraries, builds extension SDKs, and resolves back-end dependencies with link bindings ;
  • npm run build:back-end:ci: generates the Prisma ORM client artifacts and compiles the back-end TypeScript source code ;
  • npm run test:back-end:ci: runs the back-end automated test suite in non-interactive CI mode.

2. Electron desktop pipeline​

  • npm run prerequisites:electron:ci: installs and links all subproject dependencies across the repository ;
  • npm run build:electron:ci: builds all submodules and compiles the Electron desktop application ;
  • npm run distribute:electron:ci: packages, signs, and notarizes the desktop distribution bundle for the target operating system ;
  • npm run deploy:electron:ci: uploads and releases the signed distribution package to cloud storage.

3. Docker container pipeline​

  • npm run prerequisites:docker:ci: builds shared libraries, extension runtimes, and the front-end web distribution required for embedding inside the container ;
  • npm run build:docker:ci: executes the container image build via Docker ;
  • npm run deploy:docker:ci: pushes the tagged container image to Docker Hub.

GitHub Actions​

The repository defines automated CI workflows using GitHub Actions:

Simulating workflows locally with act​

You can simulate the GitHub Actions execution locally using act:

  • Back-end CI workflow: 
    act --workflows .github/workflows/back-end.yml --container-architecture linux/amd64 -P macos-26=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest
  • Electron CI workflow: 
    act --workflows .github/workflows/electron.yml --container-architecture linux/amd64 -P macos-26=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest

Useful act execution flags:​

  • Use --bind to avoid copying the workspace to the container on every run, which saves time when handling many dependencies ;
  • For the back-end workflow, pass --env skip="true" to bypass dependency reinstallation steps when already cached.