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Build

The entire process of building the site is automated using the build script.

It serves as a wrapper for commands that would normally be executed manually and includes minimal workflow logic.

This script is designed to be executed both locally and in a continuous integration (CI) environment with a single command, and it handles the following tasks:

  • Validation of Docker Compose and Composer configurations
  • Building container images and starting containers
  • Installing the development dependencies
  • Executing the site provisioning script
  • Verifying that the stack is functioning correctly and the site is accessible

To initiate the build process, simply run the command ahoy build.

::: tip

Do not forget to download your database with ahoy download-db before running ahoy build or your site will not have a source database dump to import.

:::

Build steps​

1. Initialise variables from .env, .env.local and environment​

Variables are read from multiple locations in the predefined order.

2. Validate Docker Compose configuration​

The script validates the Docker Compose configuration and exits if it is not valid. This is designed to catch errors in the configuration early.

3. Validate Composer configuration​

The script validates the Composer configuration and exits if it is not valid. The composer.lock will be validated as well.

4. Database in container image?​

If the database is stored in the container image rather than a dump file, the script will pull the image from the registry and will use it as a database.

5. Build images and start containers​

The script will build the container images and start the containers. Only required files will be copied into the image and only production dependencies will be installed. See more in the Docker section.

6. Code export directory set?​

If the $DREVOPS_CODE_EXPORT_DIR variable is set, the script will export the built code into the specified directory, which than can be used to build a deployment artifact. This is used in CI to support hosting environments that support only artifact code deployments (no build pipeline), like Acquia.

7. Install development dependencies​

The script will install the development dependencies, which are required for the site development and testing. These are installed separately from the step 5 dependencies to avoid adding the production image and code artifact with unnecessary dependencies (which also widens the security perimeter and increases the build time).

8. Is theme available?​

If the environment variable $DRUPAL_THEME is set, the script will install the front-end dependencies and compile assets. Note that this already happens during the Docker build process, so this step runs only locally to update the assets to use development versions based on the current theme build configuration (e.g. during development, the theme assets may not need to be minimised etc.).

9. Provision site​

This step will provision the site using the site provisioning script, which contains all the workflow logic that controls which actions are taken when the site is provision. It runs in all environments.

10. Check that the site is available​

This step uses doctor script to check that the stack is running correctly and that the site is available (bootstrappable) and will exit with an error.
See more in the Doctor section.