TravisCI

TravisCI is a "continuous integration" (CI) cloud service. It is useful for Open SDG in a way that is typical of open-source projects: it "listens" for certain events in your Github repository, and then provides temporary virtual machines to perform various server-side tasks. Open SDG needs a CI tool to accomplish these things:

• Run each new proposed change through certain tests, to prevent regression bugs
• Build and deploy the platform to a "staging" environment whenever changes are made
• Build and deploy the platform to a "production" environment whenever a new release is made

Pros¶

• Although there are paid plans, TravisCI is free for open-source projects
• Built-in integrations with Github repositories

Cons¶

• Requires the creation of SSH keys to communicate with version control (eg, GitHub)
• Requires the installation of Ruby to set up SSH keys

Other than these very minor issues, TravisCI makes a good choice for Open SDG.

Set-up¶

TravisCI's tight integration with Github repositories makes it relatively simple to set up. More details can be found in the official TravisCI documentation.

Usage¶

Using TravisCI involves putting a configuration file (.travis.yml) in your repository. For details on getting started, see the TravisCI documentation.

Note that although TravisCI has dedicated support for Github Pages, this approach is discouraged because it is coupled to a particular user's Github account.