Responsible WordPress Development

We highly recommend setting up a responsible development process. Gone are the days of the cowboy coder!

Note: These are very basic instructions and will require knowledge of other developer tools such as SSH, command line interface, SFTP and Git. It does not fit inside our support scope to train teams to use these tools. If you need assistance setting this system up feel free to contact our friends at one of the following:

• WP Valet
• WP SiteCare

Responsible Development Process Overview

A basic responsible development process looks like this:

1. A local development environment versioned with Git. 
2. A staging instance of the site on Pagely servers.
3. A Git repository such as GitHub or BitBucket.
4. A 1-click git deployment strategy or a GUI-based deployment system such as DeployHQ or DeployBot (any deployment service should work as long they support deploying over SSH/SFTP.

Local Environments

You and your team should be making all updates and changes to the copy on their local environment first. Once you have finished your feature it's then time to commit it to your hosted git repository.

Git Repositories

With your features complete on your local environment it's now time to commit those changes to your hosted repository.

By using Git to manage your changes, you'll ensure that everyone is on the same page. Even if you are only a single developer working on the site, Git is still incredibly valuable for tracking your changes over time and rolling them back if necessary.

Deploying to a Staging Environment

Now that you've updated your hosted Git repository, you can commit directly to your staging instance on Pagely with your 1-click Git deployment configuration. This will allow your team to review, fix or revert the changes in our environment before pushing them directly to the production site.

Deploying to a Production Environment

After you have reviewed the staging area and are satisfied it's time to commit your changes directly to the production environment. Just like deploying to staging, Git can also be utilized to easily deploy your changes to your production environment.