Dev Branch and QA Deployment

This document explains what the dev branch is used for and how QA deployment works on Cloudflare.

Purpose of the dev Branch

The dev branch is the cloud quality assurance environment:

• it validates frontend, backend, and database integration in a real remote setup
• it catches deployment/configuration issues before merging to master

Branch Policy

• master → production
• dev → QA
• feature/* → no deployment (CI only)

Deployment Workflow

Deployment is handled by a single reusable workflow:

• file: .github/workflows/deploy.yml
• trigger path: called from the dispatcher job in ci-cd.yml on repository events
• manual trigger: workflow_dispatch

What Gets Deployed on dev

When dev is deployed, the workflow deploys:

1. QA Backend Worker

   • worker name: backend-preview
   • deploy command uses --env=preview

2. QA Frontend

   • Cloudflare Pages project: frontend (deployed from dev branch)
   • frontend build variable: VITE_BACKEND_URL=https://backend-preview.luca0patrignani.workers.dev

3. QA D1 Database

   • remote migrations applied to preview D1
   • database name passed to migration step: db-preview

What Gets Deployed on master

When master is deployed, the workflow deploys:

1. backend backend
2. frontend Pages project frontend (production)
3. D1 migrations on production database db

Required GitHub Secrets

• CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN
• CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID
• CLOUDFLARE_D1_MIGRATION_RUNNER_SECRET (production D1 migrations)

Recommended Delivery Flow

1. develop on feature branches
2. merge to dev for full cloud QA validation
3. merge to master for production release

Related

• Deploy Strategy & Branch Policy
• Setup QA Deploy