Overview

Acquia has partnered with GitLab to offer Code Studio, a complete DevOps platform integrated with Cloud Platform that is optimized for Drupal and Node.js development. Acquia hosts and manages Code Studio (GitLab) within Cloud Platform on our Next generation infrastructure.

For applications hosted on Cloud Platform, Code Studio provides pre-built automation to support low-configuration, continuous integration, and continuous delivery of projects built on the current Drupal version or Node.js version. You can extend and customize the default pipeline configuration based on your needs.

Requirements

The following are the requirements for using Code Studio:

• Cloud Platform or Site Factory subscription
• Code Studio entitlement
• Cloud IDE or local machine with Acquia CLI installed

Prerequisites

The following are the required skills for using Code Studio:

• Basic knowledge of the command line:
  • For example, changing directories, using drush, and so on.
  • Using git on the CLI. For more information, see git basics.
• Understanding of how to build and install Drupal or Node.js
• Knowledge of DevOps processes and CI/CD.
• Familiarity with Cloud Platform or Site Factory.

Key features

• Access to Code Studio:
  • Code management through Git with a best in-class UI supporting branches, merge requests, issue queues, and more
  • Project management boards featuring ticket creation, kanban boards, and seamless integration with repository activity, such as merge requests and comments
• A managed CI configuration pipeline where you do not need to configure yaml files to build and deploy, unless customization is required. The default Code Studio pipeline performs the following:
  • Build
    • Install dependencies through Composer
    • Set up database service
  • Test
    • Code validation
    • Automatic execution of automated tests
  • Deploy
    • Automatic deployment to Cloud Platform
    • Creation and deletion of CDE (a temporary environment) on merge requests
• Automatic (scheduled) updates that update your Composer packages and deprecated code.

Architecture

Code Studio connects to Acquia’s hosting platforms and supports multiple Acquia products, including Cloud Platform and Site Factory.

When configuring a Code Studio project, you set up a connection between Code Studio and Cloud Platform with API keys. The Code Studio project uses Acquia CLI to connect to Cloud Platform with the Cloud API key and a secret defined as a CI/CD environment variable.

As part of Drupal Auto DevOps, the Code Studio DevOps pipeline performs the following tasks through Acquia CLI:

• Sets up Drupal with your Cloud Platform application’s database
• Creates a Cloud Platform CD to verify code changes
• Deploys and pushes artifacts from Code Studio to the hosting git repository

For information about Node.js Auto DevOps, see Node.js Auto DevOps.

Code Studio is integrated with the Cloud Platform user interface and API. The Cloud Platform user interface includes the following entitlement details and functionality for Code Studio:

• Your Code Studio entitlement information, including total number of Code Studio user seats and subscription duration.
• The ability to assign, remove, and reassign Code Studio seats to users belonging to your Cloud Platform subscription.
• The ability to provision projects for your Cloud Platform hosted applications.
• The links on your application environment cards to the corresponding branch in your Code Studio project.