These documents describe my preferred way of working with Bolt, when it comes to the "dev ops" part of the process. So, the workflow of how to set up a Bolt install in such a way that it’s pleasant to work with, easy to upgrade, and simple to deploy on a client’s server.
Feel free to mix-and-match parts of this workflow to suit your own needs. You might prefer working in a different manner, or your environments are set up in a different manner.
Boltflow is centered around the following concepts:
- Composer is a great tool for dependency management. Bolt uses a ton of Composer packages. In fact, Bolt itself is a Composer package.
- Version control using Git is great.
- The Command Line is not scary. In fact, the command line often allows you to work faster than when you’re using a GUI, and it also give you greater control and a deeper understanding of what you’re doing.
- We'll use a "local" development environment, and use a deploy strategy to put the project "live" in production.
So, Boltflow leverages these concepts to provide a quick and friendly workflow for your Bolt projects:
- We’ll only store the project-specific files in git, to keep our repository small, fast and manageable. Files like templates, configuration and other assets go in git. The rest will be “composered in”, when needed.
- We use composer extensively. Initially to fetch Bolt files and its dependencies, but also to update Bolt, components and Bolt Extensions to newer versions. When deploying a website, we’ll use Composer to deploy the website, in the exact same state as it was on the development environment.
- Boltflow comes with the
boltflow.sh
command line utility. Together withgit
andcomposer
, we leverage the power of the CLI to work efficiently.
Boltflow is divided into three parts, with one appendix:
- Setting up a project
- Working in / updating a project
- Deploying a project
- Appendix: Boltflow checklist
Want to gain more knowledge on some of the technologies used in this document? Fret not, because I have compiled a small list of links with additional information:
- 📹 Command Line Power User
- 📄 git - the simple guide
- 📄 Github guides
- 📖 💵 Git for humans by A Book Apart