Git Integration: Branches, Commits, Pull and Deploy Hooks for Your Backend

Intro

0:00 Everything you build in API Maker is text. In this video, the whole project goes into a Git repository of yours : branches, commits, a pull with its live log, the history of every item, and a deployment hook for your CI.

A backend in a panel, the usual way

0:16 A backend built in a web panel usually means no history of who changed what, settings copied by hand from dev to production, changes that go live without a review, and a rollback that depends on memory. With API Maker, every item of the account is a file in your own Git repository, status, compare and commit are in the panel, a branch is pulled on any server, by hand or by your CI, and every item has its history, with a revert one click away.

0:44 In this video : a repository connected, the first commit, a branch and a change, the work of a teammate, pulled, the history of one item, and a deployment hook for the CI.

Connect a repository

0:55 The Git page of Calm Home : no repository yet. Connect a repository : User info opens on its Git section. The Git URL with its credentials, blurred here : API Maker reads the host, the repository and the user from it. The email of the commits. Update : the repository is connected, with its branches. main becomes the working branch : commits go to it, and pulls come from it.

The first commit

1:24 Check status compares the account with the branch : every file, added, because the repository holds only a README. Collapsed, the kinds : the custom API, the instances, the schemas, the group, the API user, and the project files of every language. Every change is ticked, and the line above the message says what the commit carries : untick a file, and it stays out. A message, Commit to main, and confirm.

1:51 Nothing left to commit : the account is in Git.

A branch and a change

1:55 Marketing wants free shipping from one hundred and twenty. A new branch, feature slash free shipping 120, from main, worked on right away : it is the working branch now. The change is saved in Cart Quote. Check status : one file modified, the code of Cart Quote. Compare : the branch on the left, the account on the right, and the one line that changed, one hundred and fifty to one hundred and twenty.

2:23 Revert puts back a change you do not want. Close. Free shipping from 120, commit to the branch, confirmed.

A teammate, pulled

2:32 Meanwhile Arjun works in a clone of the same repository, on the same branch. The shipping fee of Cart Quote becomes seven point nine, committed, and pushed. Plain Git, from any editor. Back in the panel : Pull, confirmed. The server clones the branch and writes every item in one transaction, step by step, with a live log. The branch is live in the account, the fee of Arjun with it, and the branch is marked last pulled.

3:01 On a QA or a production server, the same Pull brings a branch in.

The history of one item

3:06 Every item keeps its history. Cart Quote, in API Testing : the Git icon opens it. The version live in the database, then every commit which changed Cart Quote. Shipping fee 7.9, by Arjun Mehta, and the line it changed. Free shipping from 120, by Nisha. The lower fee was for a sale that is over : Revert, to the version before it, confirmed. Only the database changed : the current version says uncommitted, until it is reviewed and committed.

A deployment hook

3:39 A pipeline can pull too. A new deployment hook : an address of this server which pulls a branch. Its name, ci_main. The access token and the secret are random, and blurred here : once saved, the secret can not be read again. Allowed IP lists the addresses of your CI ; with none, any caller with the token and the secret is answered. Save. After a merge into main, the pipeline calls the hook : a GET, with the token and the secret from its own secrets, and the branch.

4:12 The answer : pulled, and no migration error. In the panel : main, the branch last pulled, a few seconds ago, by the hook.

Good to know

4:23 Secrets never go to Git : each server keeps its own, so the same code reaches the database of that server. After a pull, the migration scripts that never ran on that server are listed to run, and a deployment hook runs them itself. Auto increments belong to one environment : commit them on the branches dev, qa, uat or prod only. Pull without secret is for a repository made on another installation.

Built on standards

4:51 It is plain Git : GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps or your own server, and the panel opens a pull request on the first four. Every account has the same layout, one folder per kind and per item, so a diff reads like the panel. And a server runs exactly what was reviewed and merged.

Recap

5:11 To sum up. A repository connected in User info. Check status, compare, commit. Branches, and a pull with its live log. The history of every item, a revert away. A deployment hook for your CI. Next : developer accounts, a workspace for every developer. API Maker. Build faster, spend smarter, deliver better.